Human Nature
This week's concept is human nature, and specifically what the Stoics believed human nature actually is. The Stoics held that every person is born with the capacity for reason and virtue, but that we arrive at wrongdoing through ignorance, poor upbringing, and the habits we absorb from those around us. Understanding this is the foundation of patience with others: when you see clearly why people do harm, indignation starts to lose its grip. The traditional term for the rational, social nature the Stoics saw in every person is "koinonia" in Greek, or more broadly what they called living "kata phusin," meaning according to nature. You will meet that idea here in plain terms as the week unfolds.
Passage
How inhuman it is to forbid men to set out after what appears suitable and advantageous to themselves. Yet, in a way, you are not allowing them to do this, whenever you are indignant because they do wrong; for certainly they are moved to what looks to be suitable and advantageous to themselves. 'But it is, in fact, not so.' Very well, instruct them and make it plain; don't be indignant.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VI.27
Reflection
Marcus presses harder here. When you feel indignant at someone's wrong choice, you are, in a practical sense, forbidding them to follow their nature, because their nature leads them toward what appears good to them, just as yours leads you toward what appears good to you. Indignation is not just unpleasant; it is logically incoherent if you accept that people act from their understanding of the good. The Stoic alternative is instruction: if you see more clearly than they do, show them. This is patience in its active form. It is not tolerance that looks away; it is the willingness to teach rather than condemn.
Go deeper
In a relationship where you find yourself repeatedly frustrated by the same person's behaviour, what would it look like to shift from expressing indignation to offering genuine, patient instruction or explanation?
Practice
Replace the Complaint
Think of a recurring frustration with someone in your life. Write down what you usually say or think when it happens. Then write an alternative: one clear, non-blaming sentence that explains or points toward a better approach. Practice saying the alternative out loud twice. The goal is not to suppress the frustration but to rehearse a more useful response.