Jolly Good Planet

A Stoic Guide to Inner Strength, Stillness, and Self‑Mastery I Think Sometimes I Might Behave as If I’ve Started to Become Unshakeable Lately I’ve noticed something subtle in myself—not a dramatic transformation, but a quiet shift, the kind that grows slowly and only reveals itself in small moments. My 86‑year‑old Dad, my family, the responsibilities that come with love and adulthood… they’re all still here. Life hasn’t become lighter. But I’ve changed in how I meet it. I wake early, do my work, carry what must be carried, and then—in the soft hour before sunrise—I listen to a robin singing outside my window. And somehow, in that small moment, I feel steady. Not untouched by life, but unbroken by it. The Stoics would call this ataraxia : a calm that doesn’t depend on circumstances, a peace that grows from within. Marcus Aurelius wrote, "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.” I think I’m learning to change...