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Stoic Wisdoms
The Courage to Begin Again
Stoic Reflections

The Courage to Begin Again

Stoic Reflection on finding strength to rebuild when life forces you to start over.

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Stoic Wisdoms
Jul 16, 2025
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Stoic Wisdoms
The Courage to Begin Again
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"A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it." — Marcus Aurelius

This is part of the Stoic Reflection series. You can browse all reflections here


The divorce papers are signed.

The business has failed.

The diagnosis changes everything.

The job is gone.

The dream is dead.

And you're standing in the wreckage of what your life used to be.

Everything you built. Everything you counted on. Everything you thought was solid.

Gone.

Now what?

The easy answer is to give up.

To declare yourself done.

To settle into the comfortable despair of "this is just how things are now."

But there's another choice. A harder one.

The choice to begin again.

"You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." — Marcus Aurelius

Beginning again isn't about pretending the past didn't happen. It's not about forcing optimism or painting over pain with positive thinking.

It's about something deeper.

Something the Stoics understood well.

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