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- Your Brain Didn't Make You Do It
Welcome to The Stoa Letter, the newsletter on Stoic theory and practice.
🏛️ Theory
Life is chaotic. Sometimes it seems like we’re losing ourselves in it.
The Stoics call us to control our inner world. As Marcus Aurelius urged himself:
You are an old man; no longer let this be a slave, no longer be pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial movements, no longer either be dissatisfied with your present lot, or shrink from the future.
No longer distract yourself. Take responsibility for how you think.
Don’t blame your environment or circumstances. Those may make your life challenging, but they don’t force you to do anything.
As Marcus Aurelius said:
Do not be whirled about, but in every movement have respect to justice, and on the occasion of every impression maintain the faculty of comprehension or understanding.
Sometimes obstacles to this path are subtle. We blame our attitudes on our upbringing, brain, or unconscious. Stoics call us to take responsibility. Perhaps some of these have truth to them. But we still play a crucial role in determining how we respond to the world. We are not just pawns in the universe’s games. We play a role.
If we blame our attitudes on the past, our brain, or something similar we risk othering ourselves. Your brain didn’t make you do it, because your brain doesn’t think. You do. That’s what you are, a thinking being. Your past doesn’t have to hold you back. You can be free now.
Whatever happened cannot prevent you from being happy.
That’s a message of profound responsibility and optimism.
🎯 Action
Seize the day and grant the next no credit!
đź”— Links
🔗 Thought as Self Conversation – a model of the mind.
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