Home / Topics / Stoicism for Difficult People
Stoicism for Difficult People
Difficult people are a given; your reaction is a choice. The Stoics assumed others act from their own judgments and errors, and practiced responding with steadiness rather than becoming a mirror of their agitation.
Stoic ideas for this
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“We are members of one great body, planted by nature.”
Seneca · On Anger
“Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot.”
Epictetus · Enchiridion
“Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
When anyone is harshly treated or insulted, remember that he thinks he is right.
Epictetus · Enchiridion
When a person has done something wrong, know that it is not his will but his judgment that is at fault; for no one is willingly deprived of the truth.
Epictetus · Discourses
When someone acts badly toward you, ask what kind of things seem good or bad to him.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then, or bear with them.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Be patient with others, for they are as imperfect as you are.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Put it into practice
A Stoic tool is only useful if you actually use it. Try this small loop the next time difficult people shows up:
- Name it plainly. Say what is happening without the story you are adding on top of it.
- Split what’s yours from what isn’t. Invest your energy only in the part you can actually choose.
- Do one small thing. A single deliberate action today beats a week of intending to.