7 Stoic Ways to Escape the Chains of the World

• 1: Being cheerful whatever befalls
• 2: Caring less about reputation
• 3: learning to endure
• 4: letting go of people
• 5: letting go of Material things
• 6: choosing our response
• 7: Accepting Death

When we look at the human condition, we notice that most of us are entirely controlled by a world outside of us. When we get what we want from it, we’re happy. But when it’s taken away from us, we’re sad. The praise people give us uplifts us, but their dislike makes us miserable. The more we want something, the more we’re willing to sacrifice to get it. And the more we oppose something, the higher the price we’re ready to pay to avoid it.

These chains of desire and aversion, love and hate, of like and dislike, leave us fearful and open to manipulation by shaming and blaming, the appeal of large companies, political parties, cults, and other external forces that want something from us. And thus, the world governs us like a donkey rider with a carrot on a stick, which most of us follow from birth to death, like the obedient cattle we are. But what if we decide to reject the carrot? What if we choose to escape the system?