Our responses define us

Today’s Daily Stoic had a great set of points and some life choices to think about. There were two key points for me: first, get ready for whatever life throws at you – preparation and anticipation help make better decisions, choices on how to respond; two, how we respond equals who we are and who we will become – strangely, all in our control – choices, decisions and responses.

The bold accent is mine

Life comes at us fast. It does not stop. It hits us with everything, everywhere, all at once. We cannot prevent this. We cannot hope to be skipped. All we can do is be ready, dug in as Marcus Aurelius said, like a wrestler, ready for sudden attacks. The unexpected blows, Seneca said, land heaviest, so we must anticipate them, we cannot be naive or lulled by false hopes. We have to prepare. We have to be ready to accept what happens, as Marcus said, just as we accept the orders of a doctor. We will stagger under the weight of all this. We will struggle and break. All we can do, the Stoics tell us, as Hemingway wrote, is try to be strong in the broken places. To focus on how we respond, what we do about it, to who we can become for having gone through it.

Daily Stoic