How Stoics Deal With STUPID People Without Losing Their Calm | Stoicism

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Listen carefully, brother. Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man on the planet in his time. He commanded [music] armies. He controlled the lives of millions. And still every morning after he woke up, he always used to remind himself that he would encounter ungrateful liars, envious, and stupid people. [music] He didn't write this in his journal because he was desperate. He wrote it to mentally prepare himself as armor. Because Marcus understood something that most people spend their entire lives refusing to accept.

[00:00:24]Stupidity is not an exception [music] to human nature. It is a permanent feature of it. And the Stoics didn't just tolerate that truth. They built an entire [music] system around it. In 65 AD, the philosopher Epictetus was a slave, not metaphorically, literally owned by a man named Epaphroditus, a [music] cruel freedman of Emperor Nero.

[00:00:42]According to the ancient biographer Celsus, Epaphroditus once twisted Epictetus' leg slowly, deliberately, just to demonstrate his power. Epictetus calmly said, "You are going to break it."

[00:00:54]>> [music] >> The man continued. The leg snapped.

[00:00:57]And Epictetus simply [music] said, "Did I not tell you that you would break it?"

[00:01:02]No screaming.

[00:01:03]No rage.

[00:01:04]>> [music] >> No anger. You see, here's the thing.

[00:01:07]Epictetus had every right to get angry, maybe even get into a fight with Epaphroditus, but he didn't. Not because he couldn't, but because he had already made a distinction that changed everything. [music] The distinction between what is in your control and what is not. That distinction is the entire foundation of how the Stoics [music] approached difficult, irrational, or simply foolish people.

[00:01:26]Now, what does that mean to you as a Stoic? If you encounter a foolish person, the first thing you should do is remember that this is the nature of life. Seneca put [music] it this way, "The wise man is never surprised." Not because he is cynical, but because he has done the philosophical work of understanding human nature deeply enough that nothing shocks him. He has already made peace with the range of things people [music] are capable of.

[00:01:49]And from that place of understanding, not innocence, not naivety, but hard-won understanding, he can engage with even the most frustrating person [music] without losing the thing that matters most, his own mind, his own center, his [music] own calm. That is not weakness.

[00:02:04]That is the hardest thing a human being can do, to stand in the presence of chaos, of pettiness, [music] of genuine stupidity, and remain quietly unmoved. Not because you feel nothing, but because you have decided with full deliberate awareness that your peace belongs to you and no one. Not the fool in the office, not the cynic online, not the petty bureaucrat, not the loudest voice in the room.

[00:02:26]No one gets to take it from you unless you hand it over first. Second, just ignore them. Don't be rude. Don't be disrespectful towards them. Just ignore.

[00:02:35]That is stoicism at its purest form.

[00:02:37]>> [music] >> Third, and this is the one most people never reach, see them clearly without contempt.

[00:02:43]Stoicism doesn't just ask you to tolerate the difficult person. It asks you to understand them. Marcus Aurelius wrote something that should stop you cold. He said, "When someone wrongs you, ask yourself, what shaped them?

[00:02:57]What did they never learn that you perhaps had the fortune of learning?"

[00:03:01]He wasn't making excuses for them. He was dissolving his own resentment because resentment is expensive.

[00:03:07]>> [music] >> It costs you sleep, focus, and hours replaying conversations with people who haven't thought about you once since they walked away. Here's what most people miss. Contempt feels like power, like you're above it, but it's actually a chain. The moment you hold someone in contempt, you've made them important enough to poison your inner world. See them instead [music] for what they are, not monsters, just unfinished as we all are in some way. And when you see people that way, something shifts. You stop needing them to be different. You stop waiting for an apology that will never come. That is the third move of the stoic, not tolerance [music] through gritted teeth, but clear grounded understanding of what another person's behavior actually is and what it isn't.

[00:03:43]It is not a verdict on your worth. It is simply a human being operating at the edge of their current capacity. [music] Remember the nature of life as Marcus did every morning. Ignore what doesn't deserve your energy as Epictetus chose, even in chains, and see clearly without contempt [music] as only someone who has done the real inner work can. Your peace is built brick by brick, choice by choice.

[00:04:05]And no one can take it unless you hand it over first.

[00:04:09]If this resonated, >> [music] >> hit that like button and subscribe if you want more of this kind of thinking every week. Stay grounded. [music] Stay unmoved. See you in the next one.