The Daily Stoic

We live in a culture where people sit on the sidelines and pass a lot of strong judgements. We look at people we don’t know and decide whether they’re good or bad people. We look at complicated situations and difficult projects and cleanly label them successes or failures—despite having little understanding of what went on behind the scenes. We take an instance of behavior or a tiny interaction—the way someone talked to us at the grocery store or a decision that they made—and extrapolate out who that person is and what motivates them.As we’ve talked about before, the result of these snap judgements is not just misery for us, but an overwhelmingly negative view of humanity and of the world. It’s no way to live. Which is why when you feel that urge to decide—as an outsider or an observer—that you know who someone is or what it means, you should stop yourself. Stop yourself and consider this prompt from Epictetus:“Until you know their reasons, how do you know whether they have acted wrongly?”What Epictetus is no