| name | s4h-mindset-stoic |
| description | Applies the full Stoic toolkit as a practical thinking methodology. Use when you're caught in worry about outcomes you can't control, struggling with circumstances outside your power, suffering from what others think of you, facing adversity or loss, or wanting to develop equanimity. Triggers: 'stoic', 'what's in my control', 'I keep worrying about outcomes', 'help me accept this', 'I can't stop thinking about what might go wrong', 'someone else controls the outcome', 'dealing with adversity'. |
Mindset — Stoic
The Stoics identified what they considered the root of most human suffering: treating things outside our control as if they were inside our control, and treating our responses to events as if they were determined by the events themselves. The framework is not about suppressing emotion — it is about distinguishing clearly what is actually yours to shape.
Epictetus opens the Enchiridion with the cleanest possible statement of the core principle: "Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions."
This is not a consolation prize. It is a recognition that the things in your control — your judgments, your choices, your character — are the only things that are unambiguously and fully yours. Everything else can be taken.
Your Process
Step 1: Identify the Situation
State clearly what is causing distress, worry, or friction. Be specific — not "I'm anxious about my career" but "I gave a presentation I thought went poorly and I'm worried my manager now has a bad impression of me."
Framing check: Confirm the specific situation before continuing. State what you've identified — the actual source of distress and its core tension — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:
- Question: "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the situation — what's happening, what's causing the distress, and what remains outside the person's control]. Is that right?"
- Header: "Framing"
- Options:
- Yes — proceed — framing is correct
- Adjust — one element is off; user will correct it before you continue
- Reframe — different situation than read; incorporate the correction before proceeding
Step 2: Apply the Dichotomy of Control
Divide the situation into two columns:
In my control (eph' hēmin):
- My judgments and interpretations
- My effort and preparation
- My actions and choices
- My character and values
Not in my control (ouk eph' hēmin):
- Others' opinions and decisions
- Outcomes and results
- Reputation
- External events, health, body
- The past
This is not a trick — many things we feel should be in our control (our reputation, how we are perceived, whether we succeed) genuinely are not. The question is not whether we want them but whether we govern them.
Step 3: Identify Which Stoic Practice Applies
Before narrowing: Show all four practices to the user with a one-sentence description of how each fits the situation. Use AskUserQuestion:
- Question: "I've identified four practices that could apply. Before I select the most fitting one, are there any you'd flag as especially relevant, or any direction you'd like to explore?"
- Header: "Prioritise"
- Options:
- Proceed with your selection — the fit looks right
- Flag one — user will name a specific practice to apply
- Combine two — user will identify which practices to run together
Negative Visualization (Premeditatio Malorum):
When you are fearful about something that might go wrong. Deliberately imagine the worst outcome in full detail. Not to wallow — but to discover that you can bear it, and to reduce the power fear has over present action. Seneca: "Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing." The Stoics found that imagining the loss of something (a relationship, a job, health) produces gratitude for what you currently have and reduces the grip of anxiety about losing it.
Amor Fati — Love of Fate:
When you are resisting something that has already happened or is happening. Not acceptance as resignation — but affirmation. Marcus Aurelius: "You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." Nietzsche later named this most sharply: "My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity." The practice: do not say "this is what I must endure" but "this is what I choose to embrace as my life."
Memento Mori — Awareness of Mortality:
When you are caught in trivialities, disproportionate distress, or procrastination. The Stoics practiced daily reflection on death — not as morbidity but as clarification. Marcus Aurelius: "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." When the awareness of finitude is present, petty concerns lose their grip and the question of how to spend the remaining time becomes sharp.
The View from Above:
When a situation feels overwhelming, personal, or catastrophically important. Zoom out to cosmic scale — literally. Marcus Aurelius practiced visualizing himself from above: his city as a point on a map, the map as a point in the empire, the empire as a blip in history, history as a moment in geological time. From that vantage, the specific situation reduces to its actual scale. This is not a reason not to care — it is a recalibration of proportion.
Step 4: Apply the Practice
Work through the chosen practice explicitly. Negative visualization: describe the worst case in specific terms and examine whether you could bear it. Amor fati: restate your relationship to what has already happened using affirmation rather than resistance. Memento mori: apply the finitude frame — what changes about this situation when death is held in mind? View from above: walk the zoom-out explicitly — from the immediate situation to year, to decade, to century.
Step 5: Articulate the Stoic Reframe
State what you now hold differently. Not a generic "I feel better about it" — a specific shift in how you are relating to what was causing distress. What have you released? What remains genuinely yours?
Human Check-in
Before proceeding, use the AskUserQuestion tool:
- Question: "What's the situation you want to work through?"
- Header: "Stoic Toolkit"
- Options:
- Share the situation — Describe what's causing worry or friction and run the full process
- Dichotomy first — Start immediately with separating what is and isn't in your control
- Choose a practice — Pick from negative visualization, amor fati, memento mori, or the view from above
- Full process — Run all steps with full Stoic framing
Output Format
Situation
[The specific situation, stated plainly]
Dichotomy of Control
In my control:
- [List of what actually belongs to the person]
Not in my control:
- [List of what is genuinely outside their governance]
What this reveals: [One sentence on what the division surfaces — what was being treated as controllable that isn't, and what the person actually has full ownership of]
Practice Applied
[Name of practice]
[Full application of the practice to the specific situation — not a description of the practice, but the practice run on this case]
The Reframe
[What the person now holds differently. Specific — not "I feel better" but a concrete shift in relationship to the situation.]
The Stoic Verdict
[One or two sentences in the voice of the tradition — what the Stoics would say about this specific situation, grounded where useful in a primary-source quote]
Notes
This is not a bypass for legitimate negative emotion. The Stoics were not emotionless — they experienced what they called eupatheia (good emotions): joy rather than pleasure, caution rather than fear, wishing rather than desire. The goal is not to eliminate feeling but to base it on accurate assessment of what is actually happening and what is actually yours.
Nearest neighbors: mindset-reframe (for restructuring specific thought distortions, rather than applying a philosophical framework), mindset-positive (for building flourishing rather than finding equanimity). Use Stoic when the work is about relationship to what's outside your control. Use reframe when the distortion is about evidence and interpretation. Use positive when what's missing is flourishing rather than equanimity.
What's Next
After delivering this output, use AskUserQuestion to offer the next move:
- Question: "Stoic perspective applied. What's next?"
- Header: "Next"
- Options:
/s4h-decision-premortem-analysis — Apply stoic premeditation formally to the plan/s4h-decision-reversibility-analysis — Assess reversibility with stoic detachment/s4h-emotional-resistance-diagnosis — Diagnose resistance the stoic framing can address- Done — Wrap up and synthesise what we have so far
