My lay-person understanding of stoicism is that it’s a philosophy that promotes an internal locus of control. Focus on the stuff you can control, let go of the

My lay-person understanding of stoicism is that it’s a philosophy that promotes an internal locus of control. Focus on the stuff you can control, let go of the stuff you can’t. Internal locus of control has shown up as a good strategy in several psychology studies (yes yes replication crisis). Studies show that people with an internal locus of control report higher life satisfaction and better life outcomes. We live in a time of doomscrolling social media full of emotional tugs and pulls about stuff that is so far outside our control it doesn’t even affect us in the least. The only reason we care is because an algorithm shoved it in our face. Then we can’t help but to care. And you know the whole “Yep the world is definitely ending in our lifetimes” vibe that’s been going around the past 10 to 20 years. This is a big problem most of us can’t do anything about. All this conspires to make stoicism look pretty appealing. Now, is it true that we can’t “change the world”? Probably not. But it’s a lot easier to change the world with a series of actionable steps that are completable and within your control, than if you try to take on everything all at once.