Often we can change things, and a realistic attitude - including envisioning worse case scenarios - actually helps to accomplish that change. But if you truly cannot do anything about something, then why on earth would you want to make things even worse for you by falling into despair? It seems like adding a self-inflicting injury to the already existing one.

Death itself is a natural occurrence, it is unavoidable, and the Stoics thought that part of philosophical practice is to get comfortable with the unavoidable, learning to face it with courage.

Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk. This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity, as it affects where large portions of our tax money go, and in some cases even whether people’s lives are lost as a result of nonsense.

I believe Stoicism can help anyone who takes it seriously and begins to practice it. It will help them flourish because it will provide them with a compass for navigating life, a general, flexible, framework to set priorities, and a set of techniques to achieve serenity and equanimity.

... it is because one can build a compelling set of arguments - informed by science and thoroughly compatible with it - that to believe in anything despite the complete lack of evidence is, in fact, irrational.

In my mind, there is no reason why Stoicism shouldn't become as popular as Buddhism, especially in the Western world, where the dominant culture, Christianity, itself absorbed a large number of elements from Greco-Roman Stoicism.

I can't speak for others, but I find the fundamental idea that a life worth living is one during which one strives every day to become a better person to be compelling.