The stoics have a strange reputation in our culture. They've been reduced to caricature on one hand, and a non-chemical brain tranquilizer on the other. The reality is they're a rich, diverse group of thinkers united by a common thread of belief that we can find peace and happiness best by dealing with the world as it is. That is, not the world as you think it should be, as you wish it were, but as it is.

The pop stoicism peddled these days -- especially in the tech circles I am sometimes forced to endure -- is stoicism severely dumbed down. It's essentially been turned into a non-chemical tranquilizer used to help you avoid seeing the very things Stoicism is likely to make you feel very uncomfortable about. The same thing has been done to meditation, Buddhism, and more, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that eventually dumbing down would make its way back to the Greeks.

The point is, if you want to learn something about stoicism, and you do, trust me, you need to go straight to the original sources. The Enchiridion of Epictetus is the text I started with many years ago, but many people find Marcus Aurelius's Meditations enjoyable as well.

There's a passably good translation of Epictetus's Enchiridion available for [free on Project Gutenburg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109) if you like ebooks. I enjoy the [Oxford University Press translation by Robin Hard](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/discourses-fragments-handbook-9780199595181?cc=us&lang=en&) ($18), which also includes the rather lengthy Discourses. I suggest starting with the Enchiridion, or in English, the Handbook.

The Enchiridion has a bit in that I've been meditating on for some time now, it's a simple and brutal proposition. He argues that you cannot lead a worldly life based on external satisfactions and end up with a life where happiness comes from within.