This is the nineteenth excerpt from our 10-week course on Stoicism. The book covering all course material, readings, and exercises is available from https://amzn.to/2Ck0fje.

Running away from problems doesn’t work 

As we saw earlier (THE STOIC, June 2020), running away from a situation does not really solve the problem. It just makes our world smaller. Besides, even if we run away from this one, we may face a comparable situation soon enough. Feeling frustrated about the situation that we don’t control is meaningless. 

We are effective when we are averse only to things we control. If we are averse to crowds, what is it that we control and what is it that we don’t control? We don’t control the crowds so there is no point in being averse to them. But we control how we feel about them. So, we can choose not to be annoyed by crowds and even welcome them. 

If I free myself from emotions that make the master frightened, what troubles can I have? 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 

Courage, the skill needed to deal with aversions 

As we said before, there is nothing wrong in preferring certain things and not preferring certain things. Stoics don’t invite danger or needlessly put themselves in unpleasant situations. But Stoics do not avoid dangerous or unpleasant situations if they believe something more important is at stake. If they must face unpleasant or dangerous situations, they are fearless and courageous. 

Stoic courage 

This is Stoic courage: Not shrinking from facing situations that others would consider unpleasant or dangerous, if something more important is at stake. 

What is “more important” than keeping yourself safe and free from danger? For the Stoics, it is whatever is in line with rationality and excellence. If it is not a rational thing to do, if not facing the situation will violate the basic virtues or excellences—wisdom, justice, or moderation—then courage is the special skill you need to act. 

Stoic courage is also the courage to face the fact that most of what we fear is external to us and therefore nothing to us. 

Doing what is rational 

Because Stoics know that externals cannot harm them, they are more concerned about doing what is rational than avoiding externals to keep themselves physically safe. Safety may be important (a “preferred indifferent”), but it means nothing to them when more important things are at stake. Stoic courage is based on considerations such as: 

• If something is totally out of our control, what is the point in being afraid of it? 
• If what someone else does is not under our control, why be fearful of anyone? 
• If externals cannot harm us, why should we have an irrational fear about them? 

So, the fourth special skill that a Stoic cultivates is fearlessness by not being averse to things not under their control. Stoic courage is being fearless in the face of aversions: not to be afraid of poverty, not to be afraid of public opinion, not to be afraid of disease or even death. A Stoic is not foolhardy, and a Stoic is not courageous for the sake of being courageous. A Stoic is fearless because she realizes that there is nothing to be afraid of. 

Let another say. “Perhaps the worst will not happen.” You yourself must say, “Well, what if it does happen?” 

Seneca, Moral Letters 13 

Key takeaways 

Aversions are our fears and dislikes. 

When we are averse to external things, we are trapped by what happens around us. We lose our freedom. 

Aversions start running our lives and our world shrinks. 

The special skill of courage is facing our external aversions and realizing that the only way to be free is to stop being averse to anything we don’t control—whether it is disease, poverty, or even death. 

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