Inquisitive.me

For a long time, I thought calm was something you were born with.

Then I realized it was something you practiced.

That realization didn’t come overnight. It came when I stumbled across the principles of Stoicism about two years ago.

I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I started following Ryan Holiday, a modern advocate of Stoicism, and read one of his books, The Obstacle Is the Way. The others are still on my TBR list.

At that time, these principles served me well. They helped me become calmer, less irritated by others, and more willing to see the good in people instead of assuming the worst. They taught me to be prepared, to seek challenges—and to learn one essential thing:

Your response matters.

I tend to overthink. A lot. I used to be stuck in my head, ruminating—replaying conversations, analyzing every sentence, preparing for situations that never even happened. All of it, just in my mind.

I still catch myself revisiting conversations with patients and asking what I could have done better. But now it feels different. It’s reflection, not rumination. I can stop when it starts to spiral, when it becomes overwhelming or unhelpful.

If this is something you struggle with too, I’m currently working on a longer post—split into two parts—about understanding overthinking in the first place (because knowing what’s going on in your brain makes it easier to deal with it) and how to actually beat it. It’s coming in February, so stay tuned.

When I dove deeper into Stoicism, I started to recognize many of these attitudes in my father. He had lived them long before I had words for them. I often wondered how he could stay so calm and balanced in so many areas of life, how he never took things personally, how he could just sit there and listen.

I thought it was just his nature but he lived Stoicism. I’m not even sure he’s aware of it—but realizing this helped me understand him, and these principles, on a much deeper level.

Stoicism also helped me develop mental mantras for certain situations.

When I catch myself overthinking, I often remind myself of a quote by Seneca:

Don’t suffer imagined troubles.

It’s simple. Direct. Easy to remember. Perfect guidance.

But the quote that really changed the way I see the world—and the reason I started writing this post in the first place—is from Epictetus:

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

A lot of self-help books share a common foundation:

You are responsible for your life.

And most of the time, that’s true. But—as always—there’s another perspective.

If you want to change your diet, that’s up to you.

If you want to change your body, that’s on you too.

If you don’t like your job, there are ways to change that as well.

But there are things you cannot be blamed for. Things that are not your fault. Sometimes, shit just happens.

You get injured in an accident.

You lose your best friend because they fell in love with a narcissist and slowly isolate themselves.

A loved one dies.

You’re born into a conflicted family.

You lose your job because the company goes bankrupt.

These are things we cannot control. External circumstances that interfere with our lives. No matter what you do, you can’t prevent them. You can’t prepare for them.

They just happen.

What is in your control is how you respond.

You can fall apart. Let your life slip through your fingers. Stop moving. Suffer in silence. Isolate yourself from people who care about you. You can mourn, complain about how unfair life is, drown in helplessness.

Sometimes, that’s all you can do. Maybe it’s what you need right now. Maybe it’s the only thing you’re capable of seeing.

But keep this in mind:

When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.

Aang, Avatar: The Last Airbender

So be open. Let people in.

They won’t change you. They can’t change you. Think about how hard it is to change yourself—believing that someone else could do it for you is almost foolish. And vice versa. That’s why pouring energy into changing others often leads nowhere.

And yet, it’s often a single sentence from someone who isn’t even that close to you that makes the difference.

I’ve heard sentences like that from people who were little more than acquaintances—people I met somewhere along the way. At the time, their words had no impact on me. Or so I thought.

But they lingered. They stayed with me. And they resurfaced later, when I was at my lowest point.

Still, if I hadn’t changed anything myself—if I hadn’t chosen how to respond to certain situations—those sentences would have faded away like everything else.

So be open. Be aware.

At some point in your life, you have to make a decision:

Do you let external circumstances dictate your life?

Or do you start choosing how you respond to them—

again and again, as a practice, not a single decision?

🧪 Let’s Experiment

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You can’t control what happens—
but you can practice choosing your response.

Reading about Stoicism is one thing. Living it is another. So instead of turning this into another idea you simply agree with and move on from, let’s make it practical.

🎯 Try This:

For the next 7 days, notice moments where something doesn’t go as planned—small or big.

When it happens, pause for a few seconds and silently ask yourself:

• Is this within my control?
• What response would help me most right now—not what feels best in the moment?

You don’t have to act perfectly. You don’t even have to act differently every time. Just notice. Name your response. If it helps, write down one sentence at the end of the day:

Today, I chose to respond by ______.

That’s it. No optimization. No fixing yourself.

🧠 Final Thought:

You don’t practice this to become unshakable. You practice it to become aware. And awareness is often the first quiet step toward change.

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Keep it simple, stay curious, and keep learning—you’ve got this.

Take care,

Carina 🦊