Epictetus: Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

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Today’s Stoic

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

Epictetus · Discourses · paraphrase

What it means today

You cannot know what you are made of until you are tested. Difficulty is not a punishment; it is a demonstration of your actual character, and the first step to strengthening it.

Try this todayTreat one difficulty today as a diagnostic: what did it show you about your habits?

Today’s questionWhat has this difficulty shown me about who I am?

#difficulty #character #testing

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Related Stoic ideas

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Seneca · Letters from a Stoic

“If you are going to learn, you must be punished; for the man who is not punished is not taught.”

Musonius Rufus · Lectures

Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

Epictetus · Discourses

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