The Stoics talk about a lot of things. But they don’t speak that much about happiness. Is that because they were too tough or too resigned to their bleak view of life to care about it? Did they mean to imply that there isn’t room for happiness for the Stoic? That it wasn’t possible?
Not at all. They talked about other things—virtue, resilience, self-command, managing the passions—because they believed when you handled that, happiness would ensue. As Dr. Becky Kennedy writes in her wonderful book Good Inside, if you want to raise happy kids, you don’t try to make them happy. You try to make them resilient and self-aware. She writes, speaking of both kids and parents, “The wider the range of feelings we can regulate—if we can manage the frustration, disappointment, envy and sadness—the more space we have to cultivate happiness. Regulating our emotions essentially develops a cushion around those feelings, softening them and preventing them from consuming the entire jar. Regulation first, happiness second.”
In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan talks stoics and growth hacking over virtual for HP. “Advance Compute and Solutions”. HP produces some the worlds most powerful PCs used by Creatives, Designers, Engineers, and Analytics teams. So we’re dealing with the leading edge technology and partner with the likes of companies like Intel, AMD and Nvidia.
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