Big idea 5. Examine impressions before accepting 

Instead of doing this one thing right—managing impressions to arrive at the right conclusion—we burden ourselves with many things … We concern ourselves with so many things that they weigh us down. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.14-15 (Chuck Chakrapani, Stoic Foundations, Ch. 1) 

Rationality, as summarized in the previous four chapters, provides a solid foundation for happiness. While the foundation is important, we need to build something upon it to make it truly useful. In particular, we need four special skills (virtues): wisdom, justice, moderation, and courage. Wisdom comes from right judgments. Right judgments mean judging impressions the right way. 

Impressions are what we think about how things are; what is happening, what has happened, or what will happen. You greet someone and the person doesn't acknowledge you. Your impression is that he is rude. The clerk at a corner shop shortchanges you. Your impression is she is dishonest and is trying to cheat you. Two or three things happen that are against your expectations. Your impression is that you are an unfortunate person. Such impressions may or may not be correct. Yet we act on them as if they were true. When our impressions are incorrect, they lead to unhappiness. To be happy, we need to judge our impressions correctly. 

Our impressions and reality 

At the very beginning of this course we saw how our judgments and opinions affect our happiness. What do we base our judgments on? On what basis do we form our opinions? We form our judgments and opinions based on what the Stoics called “impressions.” In broad terms, all stimuli (and our unthinking interpretations of them) are impressions. 

You leave a restaurant late at night and start walking towards your home. The streets are deserted. You notice someone following you. You walk fast and so does he and, in a few minutes, he is very close to you. Based on your impression, your judgment is that he is a mugger. You decide to use pepper spray, kick him, and run away. 

Your boss who is always cheerful and greets you when he sees you is ignoring you today. You try to greet him; he sees it but does not respond. This impression leads to the judgment that your boss is not happy with you or is upset with you. You are unhappy for the rest of the day. 

Impressions can lead to wrong judgments 

Because we react based on our judgment of an event rather than an event itself, if our judgments are incorrect, our actions would be incorrect as well. Wrong judgments lead to wrong actions. In the two examples above, it is quite possible that the person following was not trying to hurt you and rob you and in the second example, your boss may not be unhappy with you. 

But your judgments can also be wrong. In the first example, the person following you may be the waiter in the restaurant who is trying to catch up to you so he may return the wallet you left at the restaurant. The person following you deserves your thanks and not your attack. In the second example, your boss might have just received news that his wife was in an accident. Your judgment leads you to selfpity at a time you should be sympathetic to the other person. 

(Excerpted from How to be Stoic When You Don’t know How by Chuck Chakrapani—forthcoming) 

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THE STOIC online magazine is distributed free to subscribers of the Stoic Gym. (Third party vendors may charge a fee). The costs associated with it are 100% underwritten by the publisher, The Stoic Gym, and the personal resources of the Editor, Dr. Chuck Chakrapani. The Stoic Gym neither solicits nor accepts donations. The expenses incurred are mostly subsidized by the revenues associated with the sale of books. Affiliate Links: Amazon links in this magazine are affiliate links. If you purchase anything from Amazon using these links, you will not pay any more but The Stoic Gym will receive a small commission, which will partially contribute to the cost of producing THE STOIC. 

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