You wake up, check your phone, and see a message you didn’t expect. Your chest tightens. You feel irritated. Maybe even betrayed. A familiar story. But what really happened here?
A message appeared. That was the event.
You interpreted it—judged it—as offensive or threatening.
That interpretation triggered the emotion.
This simple pattern, repeated constantly in our daily lives, lies at the heart of Stoic philosophy. The Stoics believed we are not disturbed by things themselves, but by the opinions we form about them. Epictetus wrote, “It’s not events that disturb people, but their judgments about those events.”
This wasn’t just a clever saying. It was a core strategy for peace of mind.
Imagine truly understanding this. That your anger, your fear, your anxiety—these emotions begin inside your head. They are not injected into you by the world. They are constructed by how you judge what happens.
It’s not the traffic jam that causes rage. It’s the belief that “this is a waste of my time.”
It’s not the job rejection that leads to despair. It’s the belief that “this means I’m not good enough.”
It’s not even pain that creates suffering. It’s the belief that “this shouldn’t be happening to me.”
Judgment is always first.
Because of that, the Stoics developed what they called the discipline of assent. Every time a thought enters the mind, there is a moment—however brief—where you can agree or disagree with it. The untrained mind grabs hold of the thought without question. The Stoic mind pauses, inspects, and only then decides.
They didn’t aim to suppress emotion. They aimed to prevent false belief from turning into destructive emotion.
It’s not coldness. It’s clarity.
This mindset allowed people like Marcus Aurelius, who led an empire through war, disease, and betrayal, to remain grounded. He reminded himself, “If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment of it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.”