“These are not objective facts. These are interpretations. These are stories we're telling ourselves about something that happened. And what the Stoics are trying to get us to see is, who's telling us that story? Sometimes it's society, sometimes it's other people, but a lot of times it's us.”

That's a good question. Well, I'm supposed to do a thing tomorrow where I have to explain Stoicism to a group of five-year-olds. So I've been thinking about this. You know, to me, the core idea in Stoicism is that we don't control what happens. We control how we respond to what happens, that things outside us are objective, but our opinions about them are not, right? Epictetus says it's not things that upset us, it's our opinion about things. And I think when you talk to someone who's sort of always either causing problems for themselves or always feels like they are dealing with problems, I think one of the things we can help them do is step back and get them to see not so much how much these problems are their own creation, like it's their own fault, but how much the problem is based on their perception of there being a problem, right? That person insulted me. You know, I've been humiliated. I'm ruined. Like these are not objective facts. These are interpretations. These are stories we're telling ourselves about something that happened. And I think what the Stoics are…