Stoic Wisdom for Real Life: The Discipline of Assent

the average office worker receives 121 emails per day in our last conversation we talked about stoic justice as doing your part showing up for your community and fulfilling your role but it is nearly impossible to do your part for others when your own mind is being pulled in a 100 different directions by a constant stream of notifications headlines and demands this brings us to one of the most practical and foundational ideas in all of stoicism the discipline of ascent the stoics observed that our experience of the world happens in stages first there's an impression this is the raw data a car cuts you off in traffic your boss uses a sharp tone of voice you

read a headline about the economy these are just events neutral facts but we rarely stop there almost instantly we add a second layer a judgment that driver is a selfish jerk my boss is angry with me the economy is collapsing and i'm gonna lose everything and here is the crucial step the third stage is assent we give our assent to that judgment we agree with it we stamp it as true and the moment we do that the judgment becomes our reality the anger the fear the anxiety all of it follows from that moment of ascent the stoics argue that the space between the impression and your ascent that is where your freedom lives the discipline

of ascent is the practice of consciously managing that space it is the ability to look at your initial judgment and ask a simple question are you what you appear to be so what does this look like in practice let's take that email an email arrives from your boss at 7pm with the subject line urgent that's the impression your automatic judgment might be oh no i've done something wrong this is a disaster my weekend is ruined and your heart starts pounding you feel a pit in your stomach you have just given your assent to the story that this is a catastrophe the discipline is to pause to take a breath and to examine the judgment before you agree with it you say to the impression you are an email in my inbox the subject line says urgent that is all i know for certain the story that i've done something wrong that this is a disaster that is an opinion i am adding it is not

contained in the fact itself you withhold your assent from the catastrophic story maybe the urgent matter is just a simple question she forgot to ask maybe she needs a file you have maybe the urgency is hers not yours by refusing to immediately agree with your first panicked judgment you give yourself the space to see the situation clearly and respond rationally instead of reacting emotionally this is not about suppressing your feelings it is about being precise about what causes them the stoics would say the email didn't make you anxious your judgment about the email made you anxious and that is something you have control over the world will never stop presenting you with impressions some of

them harsh some of them frightening some of them infuriating the practice is to train yourself to see them for what they are raw data waiting for an interpretation mastering this is the work of a lifetime but it begins with small moments the next time you feel a flash of anger or fear pause isolate the initial impression from your judgment about it ask if that judgment is really true or if it's just a story you're telling yourself this is how you build an inner citadel that external events cannot breach next time we will explore what happens after you've mastered your judgments we will turn to the discipline of desire which asks one of the most important questions of all what is actually worth wanting your freedom is not found in changing the world but in changing the mind that interprets it