This is My Truth
When you tell people you’re drawn to Stoicism, they often jump to conclusions. It’s not uncommon to be seen as emotionally stunted, someone who mistrusts feelings or has trained themselves not to care. There’s an assumption that Stoicism is little more than a coping mechanism for the emotionally bereft – that it strips out joy and colour and replaces them with a sort of mental austerity.
But this isn’t what Stoicism is about. It’s really not. At its core, Stoicism is concerned with the quality of our responses – not with denying our emotions, but with refusing to be ruled by them. It’s about holding a steady course in the face of life’s many jolts, and understanding that, while we may not control what we feel, how we react is entirely up to us.
The culture doesn’t help
Part of the confusion comes from the culture we’re all swimming in. Modern work is increasingly defined by emotional tone. It’s not just that people express their feelings more openly – it’s that feelings now carry a kind of moral authority. If someone feels slighted, overwhelmed, or offended, then the feeling itself becomes the final word. It’s expected that others adapt, adjust, or back down.
Over time, this has created workplaces where people tread carefully, worrying more about tone than truth. Feedback loses its bite. Meetings start to revolve around whoever’s having the strongest emotional reaction. Disagreements, even when respectful, are often avoided for fear of being seen as insensitive or aggressive. The intention may be kindness, but the outcome is usually fragility.
Stoicism offers something sturdier
What Stoicism offers in response isn’t detachment, and it certainly isn’t suppression. It’s a framework for navigating emotion – one that accepts its presence, but doesn’t give it undue power.
The Stoic doesn’t deny anger, disappointment or fear. They recognise these emotions for what they are: signals, not commands. Feeling something intensely is no guarantee that it deserves action. Stoicism invites a pause – a chance to interrogate the feeling before responding. Sometimes, that pause is enough to change everything.
At work, this discipline matters. When someone criticises your work, you don’t need to take it personally. When a colleague speaks out of turn, you can choose whether it’s worth reacting. When you fall short of your own standards, you can acknowledge it without collapsing into guilt or shame. This isn’t about coldness – it’s about conserving energy for what really matters.
A more resilient way of working
What emerges from this approach is a kind of quiet resilience. You can care deeply about your work without becoming fragile. You can support a struggling colleague without making their crisis yours. You can aim high, fall short, and try again – all without losing your sense of self.
And when you do make a mistake – which you will – you own it, you fix it, and you move on. You don’t spiral. You don’t look for someone to blame. You simply return to the task at hand, focused on the next right step.
This doesn’t mean you become robotic. In fact, the irony is that Stoicism often opens the door to richer emotion. When you’re no longer constantly reacting – no longer stuck in cycles of anxiety, ego or resentment – you start to notice other things. There’s more room for gratitude. For calm. For a quiet pride in doing good work, whether or not it’s recognised. You’re not detached from life. You’re finally able to engage with it more fully, and on your own terms.
Looking ahead
In the next post, we’ll explore one of Stoicism’s most powerful and practical insights – the idea that we should focus only on what’s within our control. Most of what happens at work sits outside that circle: the outcomes, the office politics, the perception others have of us. But the quality of our effort, the values we bring to the table, the way we respond when things go sideways – that’s ours. And once we see the boundary clearly, we can finally stop wasting energy on the wrong side of it.