imagine if you will to be walking down
the streets of Athens 24 centuries ago
give or take you might meet this guy
Zeno of sytem he was a merchant
Phoenician merchant he was doing very
well until a shipwreck destroyed
everything and it lost everything he had
so he made it to Athens and what did he
do one of the first things they did was
to walk into a bookshop and sorry
reading books he read Xenophon’s
memorabilia which is a book about
Socrates and he was so intrigued that he
turned to the bookseller and says where
can I find me one of these people one of
these philosophers folks and the
bookseller turn around said well there’s
one right over there walking by because
that was a tense at the time
philosophers were just walking by the
guy walking by was great as a scenic
philosopher and Zeno became his student
eventually went on to study with a
number of other the major philosophers
in Athens and then he established his
own school which became known as
stoicism because they started meeting in
the store in the open market unlike the
other schools where you had to go to a
specific place Plato’s Academy or
restorers Lyceum the Stoics wanted to be
in the middle of people they wanted to
talk to people about their life and how
to make it better choices became one of
the major philosophies of antiquity it
spread through the Allen istic world
first and then to the Roman Republic and
then Roman Empire it produced some of
the major thinkers of the time
sanika who was a senator a playwright
influenced Shakespeare and the
unfortunate advisor to the Emperor Nero
that didn’t end up well for Seneca
Marcus Aurelius
won a few King philosophers of all of
history who wrote the meditations his
own personal diary which is now read by
millions of people around the world now
unusually for ancient philosophy
stoicism attracted a number of women a
lot of Roman matrons used to organize
convivial which were sort of
get-togethers with their friends to talk
about stoicism but many
them also lived the philosophy one of
them the most famous ones was Portia
Katona’s who happened to be both the
daughter of Cato the younger who was an
archenemy of Julius Caesar as well as
the wife of Brutus one of the
co-conspirator against Caesar so she had
a lot to deal with in her life and she
approached it in a stoic fashion now
stoicism like all ancient schools of
philosophy eventually died down or was
closed with the rise of Christianity but
he kept influencing people throughout
the following two millennia reason many
people today are actually familiar with
some of the stoic ideas because the
influence Christianity beginning with
Paulo tarsus arguably the founder of
Christianity and continuing with Thomas
Aquinas
the most influential theologian of the
Middle Ages and then into more modern
times Rene Descartes like arguably one
of the most important philosophers
modern philosophers and Baroque Spinoza
whose ethics was in fact based mostly on
stoicism but enough about in history
what his choice is about well the first
thing is it’s based on a crucial premise
that we should live our life according
to nature now before you go and run into
the forest naked to hug trees that’s not
what it is about the story starts that
we should take seriously human nature
and human nature fundamentally consists
of two things two aspects one were
highly social animals we can survive on
our own if we have to but we only thrive
in groups of people we only thrive when
we have healthy social networks and two
were capable of reason now as you know
that doesn’t mean that were reasonable
all the time is fat on the contrary we
struggle for that but we are capable of
reason for the Stoics it followed that
the best kind of human life you can
actually have is one in which you apply
your reason your intelligence to improve
social living to improve everybody
else’s life there are two fundamental
pillars of stoic philosophy which we
will see in a minute apply very
practically to our life one is the court
the four cardinal virtues
practical wisdom courage just
and temperance practical wisdom is the
knowledge of where it’s good for you and
what is not good for you courage is not
just physical but especially moral the
courage to stand up and do the right
thing
justice is what tells you what the right
thing is how to interact with other
people how to treat other people and
temperance is the idea that you should
always do things in rhyme measure not
overdoing them no under dunam the second
pillar is called dichotomy or control
this is the very basic idea that some
things are up to us and other things are
not up to us now you can divide
everything you do into these two
categories and only worry about the
first one and not the second one for
instance I came here thinking that I
could control the slides as you seen
that’s outside of my control do I worry
about it now let me introduce you to
Epictetus it was one of the most
important stoic philosophers of
antiquity it was a slave he was born in
hierapolis in modern-day pamukkala in
Turkey it was acquired in Fatty’s in his
name means acquired we don’t know his
real name
Epictetus just means acquired and
brought the room to the court of the
Emperor Nero where he did pretty well
eventually it was freed and it was was
bright guy so he started going to the
streets of Rome preaching stoicism and
for his troubles he got a punched on the
nose so I figured that wasn’t a good
approach he was in his power to change
the approach so he started over and
established his own school which was
very successful until the emperor
Domitian kicked out all the Stoics out
around because he did not appreciate
their speaking truth to power as we
would say today so epically removed and
went to necropolis northwestern Greece
re-established his school and became one
of the most famous teachers of antiquity
the reason I like epictetus is because
he is blunt and he has a sarcastic sense
of humor and I’ll give you a taste of
this in a second here’s what he says in
the discourses I have to die if it is
now well then I die now if later then
now I will take my lunch since the hour
for lunch has arrived
and dying I will tend to later
don’t worry about death what about lunch
because you know you’re gonna die and
that’s not under your control lunch and
now I told you about the dichotomy of
control being one of the two fundamental
pillars of Stoicism here is how I picked
it is himself explains it he says some
things are within our power while others
are not within our power our opinion
motivation desire and in a word whatever
is of our own doing not within our power
or our body of our property reputation
and in a word whatever is not however on
doing know if you stop for a second
think about it’s like that is weird he’s
saying that my body my property my
reputation not in our power what do you
mean I can decide to go to the gym and
eat healthy of course my body is under
my power
unless the virus strikes you down unless
you have an accident you break your leg
the idea is that you can do things you
can make decisions about your health
your reputation and cetera et cetera but
ultimately you don’t control the outcome
so what does that mean in practice it
means that we should try to walk through
life by internalizing our goals not
worry about the outcomes because those
are outside of our control but worried
about our intentions and our efforts
because those are very much and they’re
our control one of the beautiful
metaphors that the Stoics introduced was
that of an archer imagine that you’re
trying to hit a target what is under
your control
well the practice of archery you can you
can practice for hours and hours and
hours you can choose the best bows and
arrows that are available to you you can
take care of those bows and arrows you
can focus up until the second in which
you let the arrow go but after that
things are completely outside of your
control a gust of wind can ruin your
best shot the target may move especially
if it’s an enemy soldier and you missed
so what do you do
according to Cicero the actual hitting
at the mark would be to be chosen but
not to be desired so you do not attach
your own self-esteem to the outcome you
only attach it to what’s under your
control to your attempt
in practice in today’s life these can
change the way you look at pretty much
everything let me give you a couple of
examples let’s say you’re up for a
promotion for your job now the normal
thing to do would be to worry about
whether you’re gonna get the promotion
or not according to the Stoics that’s
the wrong way to look at it because the
promotion itself is outside of your
control your boss might have gotten up
in the morning on the wrong side of the
bed and he’s upset and he’s got
something else on his mind and he’s just
not gonna the interview is not gonna go
well or maybe there is somebody else who
actually deserves the promotion better
than you do even though you did well and
again that’s not up to you
what is up to you of course is to
prepare the best you can for your
interview to put together the best
resume as possible to work really hard
to actually fight to deserve that
promotion
that’s the locus of your control that’s
where you should focus your efforts or
think in terms of relationships you know
everybody wants to be loved but that’s
not up to us it’s up to the person who
may or may not love us what’s up to us
is to be the most lovable person to be
affectionate to be there for them what
did they decide to stick with us or not
not another control so if you take this
seriously
Epictetus size you will in fact have a
happy life because part of great part of
happiness lies in the serenity into the
idea that you always walk through life
by knowing that you’ve done your best
and then nothing else could be done on
top of that it says if you have the
right idea about what really belongs to
you and what does not in other words
what you do control and what you don’t
control you will never be subject to
force or hindrance you will never blame
or criticize anyone and everything you
do will be done willingly and this would
be a significantly better world than the
one in which everybody goes around
blaming other people for what they don’t
have control over now my colleague Brian
Johnson at Fordham University explained
the pts approach as a type of role
ethics the idea is that we all play a
variety of roles in life and that a
happy life consists in balancing these
roles as best as we can there are in
fact fundamentally three kinds of roles
first our basic role as a human being
we’re all members of the human palace
the Stoics were the ones that introduced
the term cosmopolitan literally meaning
a citizen of the universal palace we’re
all human beings were all in the same
place and we have to take care of the
same place then there are roles that are
given to us by circumstances you could
be you know somebody as somebody’s son
or daughter that’s that was in your
choice it just happened and then their
roles that we choose depending on the
circumstances our career being a mother
or a father things like that
these three sets of roles are relating
in the following way your basic role of
human being trumps everything else
everything you do you should ask for
yourself first is this good for Humanity
if it isn’t don’t do it it’s a simple
test you will end up doing much less by
the way if you follow this actually
saves your energy and then the rest you
simply balance things out these roles
come with trade-offs yes you want to be
the best mother or father and son or
daughter and colleague and friend and so
forth but they are trade-offs and a lot
of what stoic philosophy tells you about
or teaches about is how to balance these
things how do you play these roles where
the most important thing is you play
them with integrity what does that mean
or a picked it is again explains you are
the one that knows yourself of how much
you’re worth to yourself and for how
much you’re selling yourself consider at
what price you sell your integrity but
please for God’s sake don’t sell it
cheap what that means is that the goal
here is not to reach perfection
whatever that means is just to be the
best you can don’t compromise and sell
yourself cheap because you only have
yourself to sell that’s it once you sold
yourself then there is nothing else left
the idea is to be not perfect but just
better than you were yesterday one
little step at a time now let me give
you a couple of examples
patitos talks about a father who is very
distraught because his daughter is sick
and he just can’t take it it leaves the
house and and leaves his wife to deal
with the daughter and if it did I says
wait a minute do you think you were
right
to have acted that way the father thinks
about it from internet says well I was
behaving naturally I was you know I was
distraught I couldn’t I couldn’t help it
well that brings up the distinction
between what is natural to us our
feelings you don’t control your feelings
if you’re distraught because your
daughter is sick there’s nothing you can
do or should do probably about it but
that’s different from the ethical duty
that you have toward your daughter
you’re her father you’re supposed to
stay there even though it does cost you
in terms of emotional energy so the two
virtues that come into play here are
courage to actually do the right thing
to stay with the daughter and justice
that is due the just thing the correct
thing with you for your daughter we also
have to as I said before balance
different social roles and this has to
do with two other virtues the practical
wisdom the idea of knowing the
difference between what is good for you
and what is not good for you and
temperance the idea that you can balance
things by putting the right amount of
energy into everything you do
Epictetus explains it this way reflect
on the other social roles you play if
you’re young what does it mean to be
young if you’re old what does age imply
if you’re a father what does father it
entail each of our titles such as the
acts appropriate to it imagine that you
are an actor you playing a role now the
role is not completely determined you
can play the role of a mother for
instance in many different ways you
don’t have to play it in the way in
which society large tells you to play
you just have to play the way you think
it’s the right way to play it but still
you’re a mother or a father so you have
certain duties the way you cash out
these duties the way you actually
exercise those duties is up to you but
you do have them now how do we learn to
play well our roles in life there’s many
ways the Stoics were famous for a number
of exercises practical exercises about
this thing but fundamentally one of the
best ways to go is to simply imagine
people that actually do well people that
are your role models people you can see
and use as is a pattern after which you
change your own life the ancients used
people that they knew people that they
heard about or even imaginary people one
of their favorite role model was Cato
the younger I mentioned him earlier it
was the father of coach Portia Katona’s
he was he has such a level of integrity
that when people in Rome did something
wrong they didn’t you know they made a
mistake they didn’t hold up to
expectations they would say well then
everybody can be a Cato it was used as
an excuse it’s like you know nobody can
be that good well right but you can try
one of the favorite ancient role models
was a DC’s who gave up up immortality
twice and and endured ten years of
traveling just to get back home to get
back to his wife into his child but
there are also rotten modern role models
and there’s a lot of them to pick from
some of my favorites are Nelson Mandela
who as we knew now spent more than 20
years in prison funding the apartheid
regime
it was very angry understandably during
that period but one of the changing
points in his life was when one of his
fellow inmates smuggled in a copy of
Marcus Aurelius meditations Mandela read
it and understood that way forward was
not through anger or hatred but on the
country by extending an end a hand also
to the people even to the people who
were his captors in his tremendous and
that changed his life and change the
life of the people of South Africa you
know my favorite role models
Susan Fowler who a couple of years ago
came out and stood up to the uber Motor
Company to denounce their sexual
harassment culture that was widespread
at the time she risked a lot personally
in terms of career in terms of
friendships and she did it from a story
perspective happy to know Susan and she
is in fact a partisan stoic my favorite
role model at a fictional level is
spider-man who famously said that with
great powers come great responsibility
we don’t have great powers we’re now
superheroes but we do have power where
the power of exercising choices and that
power comes with responsibility of
exercising the best choice we can
possibly make
so the general idea going to a potatoes
is that just like actors in ancient in
the ancient world in ancient Greece we
wear a number of masks and we change
them continuously the same actor would
come out on stage and wear a different
mask and the mask will tell the audience
which character he was playing in the
moment and if we remind the actor
himself that he was now playing a
different character and the idea is that
a happy life is in fact a life well
balanced where you play all these roles
as the best actor you can possibly be
thank you very much [Applause]
the streets of Athens 24 centuries ago
give or take you might meet this guy
Zeno of sytem he was a merchant
Phoenician merchant he was doing very
well until a shipwreck destroyed
everything and it lost everything he had
so he made it to Athens and what did he
do one of the first things they did was
to walk into a bookshop and sorry
reading books he read Xenophon’s
memorabilia which is a book about
Socrates and he was so intrigued that he
turned to the bookseller and says where
can I find me one of these people one of
these philosophers folks and the
bookseller turn around said well there’s
one right over there walking by because
that was a tense at the time
philosophers were just walking by the
guy walking by was great as a scenic
philosopher and Zeno became his student
eventually went on to study with a
number of other the major philosophers
in Athens and then he established his
own school which became known as
stoicism because they started meeting in
the store in the open market unlike the
other schools where you had to go to a
specific place Plato’s Academy or
restorers Lyceum the Stoics wanted to be
in the middle of people they wanted to
talk to people about their life and how
to make it better choices became one of
the major philosophies of antiquity it
spread through the Allen istic world
first and then to the Roman Republic and
then Roman Empire it produced some of
the major thinkers of the time
sanika who was a senator a playwright
influenced Shakespeare and the
unfortunate advisor to the Emperor Nero
that didn’t end up well for Seneca
Marcus Aurelius
won a few King philosophers of all of
history who wrote the meditations his
own personal diary which is now read by
millions of people around the world now
unusually for ancient philosophy
stoicism attracted a number of women a
lot of Roman matrons used to organize
convivial which were sort of
get-togethers with their friends to talk
about stoicism but many
them also lived the philosophy one of
them the most famous ones was Portia
Katona’s who happened to be both the
daughter of Cato the younger who was an
archenemy of Julius Caesar as well as
the wife of Brutus one of the
co-conspirator against Caesar so she had
a lot to deal with in her life and she
approached it in a stoic fashion now
stoicism like all ancient schools of
philosophy eventually died down or was
closed with the rise of Christianity but
he kept influencing people throughout
the following two millennia reason many
people today are actually familiar with
some of the stoic ideas because the
influence Christianity beginning with
Paulo tarsus arguably the founder of
Christianity and continuing with Thomas
Aquinas
the most influential theologian of the
Middle Ages and then into more modern
times Rene Descartes like arguably one
of the most important philosophers
modern philosophers and Baroque Spinoza
whose ethics was in fact based mostly on
stoicism but enough about in history
what his choice is about well the first
thing is it’s based on a crucial premise
that we should live our life according
to nature now before you go and run into
the forest naked to hug trees that’s not
what it is about the story starts that
we should take seriously human nature
and human nature fundamentally consists
of two things two aspects one were
highly social animals we can survive on
our own if we have to but we only thrive
in groups of people we only thrive when
we have healthy social networks and two
were capable of reason now as you know
that doesn’t mean that were reasonable
all the time is fat on the contrary we
struggle for that but we are capable of
reason for the Stoics it followed that
the best kind of human life you can
actually have is one in which you apply
your reason your intelligence to improve
social living to improve everybody
else’s life there are two fundamental
pillars of stoic philosophy which we
will see in a minute apply very
practically to our life one is the court
the four cardinal virtues
practical wisdom courage just
and temperance practical wisdom is the
knowledge of where it’s good for you and
what is not good for you courage is not
just physical but especially moral the
courage to stand up and do the right
thing
justice is what tells you what the right
thing is how to interact with other
people how to treat other people and
temperance is the idea that you should
always do things in rhyme measure not
overdoing them no under dunam the second
pillar is called dichotomy or control
this is the very basic idea that some
things are up to us and other things are
not up to us now you can divide
everything you do into these two
categories and only worry about the
first one and not the second one for
instance I came here thinking that I
could control the slides as you seen
that’s outside of my control do I worry
about it now let me introduce you to
Epictetus it was one of the most
important stoic philosophers of
antiquity it was a slave he was born in
hierapolis in modern-day pamukkala in
Turkey it was acquired in Fatty’s in his
name means acquired we don’t know his
real name
Epictetus just means acquired and
brought the room to the court of the
Emperor Nero where he did pretty well
eventually it was freed and it was was
bright guy so he started going to the
streets of Rome preaching stoicism and
for his troubles he got a punched on the
nose so I figured that wasn’t a good
approach he was in his power to change
the approach so he started over and
established his own school which was
very successful until the emperor
Domitian kicked out all the Stoics out
around because he did not appreciate
their speaking truth to power as we
would say today so epically removed and
went to necropolis northwestern Greece
re-established his school and became one
of the most famous teachers of antiquity
the reason I like epictetus is because
he is blunt and he has a sarcastic sense
of humor and I’ll give you a taste of
this in a second here’s what he says in
the discourses I have to die if it is
now well then I die now if later then
now I will take my lunch since the hour
for lunch has arrived
and dying I will tend to later
don’t worry about death what about lunch
because you know you’re gonna die and
that’s not under your control lunch and
now I told you about the dichotomy of
control being one of the two fundamental
pillars of Stoicism here is how I picked
it is himself explains it he says some
things are within our power while others
are not within our power our opinion
motivation desire and in a word whatever
is of our own doing not within our power
or our body of our property reputation
and in a word whatever is not however on
doing know if you stop for a second
think about it’s like that is weird he’s
saying that my body my property my
reputation not in our power what do you
mean I can decide to go to the gym and
eat healthy of course my body is under
my power
unless the virus strikes you down unless
you have an accident you break your leg
the idea is that you can do things you
can make decisions about your health
your reputation and cetera et cetera but
ultimately you don’t control the outcome
so what does that mean in practice it
means that we should try to walk through
life by internalizing our goals not
worry about the outcomes because those
are outside of our control but worried
about our intentions and our efforts
because those are very much and they’re
our control one of the beautiful
metaphors that the Stoics introduced was
that of an archer imagine that you’re
trying to hit a target what is under
your control
well the practice of archery you can you
can practice for hours and hours and
hours you can choose the best bows and
arrows that are available to you you can
take care of those bows and arrows you
can focus up until the second in which
you let the arrow go but after that
things are completely outside of your
control a gust of wind can ruin your
best shot the target may move especially
if it’s an enemy soldier and you missed
so what do you do
according to Cicero the actual hitting
at the mark would be to be chosen but
not to be desired so you do not attach
your own self-esteem to the outcome you
only attach it to what’s under your
control to your attempt
in practice in today’s life these can
change the way you look at pretty much
everything let me give you a couple of
examples let’s say you’re up for a
promotion for your job now the normal
thing to do would be to worry about
whether you’re gonna get the promotion
or not according to the Stoics that’s
the wrong way to look at it because the
promotion itself is outside of your
control your boss might have gotten up
in the morning on the wrong side of the
bed and he’s upset and he’s got
something else on his mind and he’s just
not gonna the interview is not gonna go
well or maybe there is somebody else who
actually deserves the promotion better
than you do even though you did well and
again that’s not up to you
what is up to you of course is to
prepare the best you can for your
interview to put together the best
resume as possible to work really hard
to actually fight to deserve that
promotion
that’s the locus of your control that’s
where you should focus your efforts or
think in terms of relationships you know
everybody wants to be loved but that’s
not up to us it’s up to the person who
may or may not love us what’s up to us
is to be the most lovable person to be
affectionate to be there for them what
did they decide to stick with us or not
not another control so if you take this
seriously
Epictetus size you will in fact have a
happy life because part of great part of
happiness lies in the serenity into the
idea that you always walk through life
by knowing that you’ve done your best
and then nothing else could be done on
top of that it says if you have the
right idea about what really belongs to
you and what does not in other words
what you do control and what you don’t
control you will never be subject to
force or hindrance you will never blame
or criticize anyone and everything you
do will be done willingly and this would
be a significantly better world than the
one in which everybody goes around
blaming other people for what they don’t
have control over now my colleague Brian
Johnson at Fordham University explained
the pts approach as a type of role
ethics the idea is that we all play a
variety of roles in life and that a
happy life consists in balancing these
roles as best as we can there are in
fact fundamentally three kinds of roles
first our basic role as a human being
we’re all members of the human palace
the Stoics were the ones that introduced
the term cosmopolitan literally meaning
a citizen of the universal palace we’re
all human beings were all in the same
place and we have to take care of the
same place then there are roles that are
given to us by circumstances you could
be you know somebody as somebody’s son
or daughter that’s that was in your
choice it just happened and then their
roles that we choose depending on the
circumstances our career being a mother
or a father things like that
these three sets of roles are relating
in the following way your basic role of
human being trumps everything else
everything you do you should ask for
yourself first is this good for Humanity
if it isn’t don’t do it it’s a simple
test you will end up doing much less by
the way if you follow this actually
saves your energy and then the rest you
simply balance things out these roles
come with trade-offs yes you want to be
the best mother or father and son or
daughter and colleague and friend and so
forth but they are trade-offs and a lot
of what stoic philosophy tells you about
or teaches about is how to balance these
things how do you play these roles where
the most important thing is you play
them with integrity what does that mean
or a picked it is again explains you are
the one that knows yourself of how much
you’re worth to yourself and for how
much you’re selling yourself consider at
what price you sell your integrity but
please for God’s sake don’t sell it
cheap what that means is that the goal
here is not to reach perfection
whatever that means is just to be the
best you can don’t compromise and sell
yourself cheap because you only have
yourself to sell that’s it once you sold
yourself then there is nothing else left
the idea is to be not perfect but just
better than you were yesterday one
little step at a time now let me give
you a couple of examples
patitos talks about a father who is very
distraught because his daughter is sick
and he just can’t take it it leaves the
house and and leaves his wife to deal
with the daughter and if it did I says
wait a minute do you think you were
right
to have acted that way the father thinks
about it from internet says well I was
behaving naturally I was you know I was
distraught I couldn’t I couldn’t help it
well that brings up the distinction
between what is natural to us our
feelings you don’t control your feelings
if you’re distraught because your
daughter is sick there’s nothing you can
do or should do probably about it but
that’s different from the ethical duty
that you have toward your daughter
you’re her father you’re supposed to
stay there even though it does cost you
in terms of emotional energy so the two
virtues that come into play here are
courage to actually do the right thing
to stay with the daughter and justice
that is due the just thing the correct
thing with you for your daughter we also
have to as I said before balance
different social roles and this has to
do with two other virtues the practical
wisdom the idea of knowing the
difference between what is good for you
and what is not good for you and
temperance the idea that you can balance
things by putting the right amount of
energy into everything you do
Epictetus explains it this way reflect
on the other social roles you play if
you’re young what does it mean to be
young if you’re old what does age imply
if you’re a father what does father it
entail each of our titles such as the
acts appropriate to it imagine that you
are an actor you playing a role now the
role is not completely determined you
can play the role of a mother for
instance in many different ways you
don’t have to play it in the way in
which society large tells you to play
you just have to play the way you think
it’s the right way to play it but still
you’re a mother or a father so you have
certain duties the way you cash out
these duties the way you actually
exercise those duties is up to you but
you do have them now how do we learn to
play well our roles in life there’s many
ways the Stoics were famous for a number
of exercises practical exercises about
this thing but fundamentally one of the
best ways to go is to simply imagine
people that actually do well people that
are your role models people you can see
and use as is a pattern after which you
change your own life the ancients used
people that they knew people that they
heard about or even imaginary people one
of their favorite role model was Cato
the younger I mentioned him earlier it
was the father of coach Portia Katona’s
he was he has such a level of integrity
that when people in Rome did something
wrong they didn’t you know they made a
mistake they didn’t hold up to
expectations they would say well then
everybody can be a Cato it was used as
an excuse it’s like you know nobody can
be that good well right but you can try
one of the favorite ancient role models
was a DC’s who gave up up immortality
twice and and endured ten years of
traveling just to get back home to get
back to his wife into his child but
there are also rotten modern role models
and there’s a lot of them to pick from
some of my favorites are Nelson Mandela
who as we knew now spent more than 20
years in prison funding the apartheid
regime
it was very angry understandably during
that period but one of the changing
points in his life was when one of his
fellow inmates smuggled in a copy of
Marcus Aurelius meditations Mandela read
it and understood that way forward was
not through anger or hatred but on the
country by extending an end a hand also
to the people even to the people who
were his captors in his tremendous and
that changed his life and change the
life of the people of South Africa you
know my favorite role models
Susan Fowler who a couple of years ago
came out and stood up to the uber Motor
Company to denounce their sexual
harassment culture that was widespread
at the time she risked a lot personally
in terms of career in terms of
friendships and she did it from a story
perspective happy to know Susan and she
is in fact a partisan stoic my favorite
role model at a fictional level is
spider-man who famously said that with
great powers come great responsibility
we don’t have great powers we’re now
superheroes but we do have power where
the power of exercising choices and that
power comes with responsibility of
exercising the best choice we can
possibly make
so the general idea going to a potatoes
is that just like actors in ancient in
the ancient world in ancient Greece we
wear a number of masks and we change
them continuously the same actor would
come out on stage and wear a different
mask and the mask will tell the audience
which character he was playing in the
moment and if we remind the actor
himself that he was now playing a
different character and the idea is that
a happy life is in fact a life well
balanced where you play all these roles
as the best actor you can possibly be
thank you very much [Applause]
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