It Doesn’t Matter What You Do, It Matters How You Do It

<p>The occupations of the three most well-known Stoics could not be more different. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/seneca/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Seneca was a playwright</a>, a wealthy landowner, and a political advisor. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Epictetus was a former slave</a> who became a philosophy teacher. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Marcus Aurelius would have loved</a> to be a philosopher but instead found himself wearing the purple cloak of the emperor. </p><p><a href='https://dailystoic.com/zeno/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Zeno was</a> a prosperous merchant. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/cleanthes/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Cleanthes was</a> a water carrier. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/cato/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=how-you-do'>Cato was</a> a Senator. The modern Stoics include <a href='https://geni.us/jzgGgK'>James Stockdale</a>, a fighter pilot, and <a href='https://geni.us/gWR9nqh'>Tim Ferriss</a>, a writer and a technology investor.</p><p>These jobs have very little in common. The lifestyles they support are vastly different as well—so are the opportunities, the temptations, the frustrations and the stresses that they produce. </p><p>But none of that matters. What matters <em>is how you do your job and how you respond to the situations it creates for you.</em> Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself that it was possible to live a good life anywhere—including in the complicated and intoxicating halls of power. He mostly proved that true. (Sadly, Seneca fell short in those same hallways). </p><p>It doesn’t matter whether you’re a janitor or a junior senator. It doesn’t matter whether you’re negotiating a multi-million dollar