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Stoicism for Letting Go
Much of our suffering is clinging to what we do not control — outcomes, other people, the past. Letting go, in Stoic terms, is not giving up; it is correctly locating what is yours and releasing the rest.
Stoic ideas for this
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
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
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
Epictetus · Fragments
“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
Epictetus · Enchiridion
“Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do.”
Epictetus · Enchiridion
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
Epictetus · Enchiridion
“For a man to be happy, he must live in accordance with nature, and this is impossible unless he has learned what is in accordance with nature and trained himself to do it.”
Musonius Rufus · Lectures
“Lead me, Zeus, and you too, Destiny, to where you have assigned me.”
Cleanthes · Hymn to Zeus
“I follow willingly; but if I do not, I shall be forced to follow.”
Cleanthes · Hymn to Zeus
“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”
Zeno of Citium · Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
Put it into practice
A Stoic tool is only useful if you actually use it. Try this small loop the next time letting go 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.
Related ideas
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