Obviously I don't mean me. That wouldn't really be possible now would it. The Shrink & The Sage column in the FT magazine today features a debate as to whether we should be more stoic. And so they should; indeed so should all the other newspapers. Every day. Some aspects of the column are not quite to my taste. Philosopher Julian Baggini avers that 'given more than two millennia have elapsed since the Stoics developed their ideas, it would seem especially off to relight their torch and carry it through the streets of our modern cities'. One wouldn't expect Epictetus - the stoics' stoic - to buy that one; and the international Olympic Committee don't appear to be listening either.
Better is the view from Antonia Macaro who says "The broad message is to think rationally, examine our emotions and challenge our assumptions about what has value.". I couldn't have put it more eloquently myself. Well, perhaps I could have. Let's see if she is still quoted in two thousand years time. But for a beginner, that's not bad.
"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak" - Epictetus the Stoic
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