"Unbothered" has become a bit of a status symbol. Online, it usually means looking as if nothing gets to you: the cool reply, the shrug, the impression of not caring.

The Stoics were after something quieter, and more demanding. They didn't want to look calm. They wanted to understand why things got to them in the first place, and what part of that was actually up to them.

Composure wasn't the end goal, either. For the Stoics, the goal was to act wisely and justly, including under pressure. Marcus Aurelius wrote that nothing is truly good for a person unless it makes them "just, temperate, manly, free" (Meditations 8.1). Sometimes acting well means letting a slight pass. Sometimes it means having a difficult conversation or standing up for someone. Being unbothered, in their sense, is what makes it easier to tell which is which.

They also came at it from very different lives. Epictetus spent part of his life enslaved before becoming a teacher. Marcus ran the Roman Empire. Seneca was a wealthy statesman who advised Nero. If people in those positions found these ideas useful, they're probably worth a look for the rest of us dealing with difficult colleagues, family friction and the occasional rude stranger.

Here are eight lessons from the Stoics on letting things go, along with a small way to try each one.

1. Sort what's yours from what isn't

The Enchiridion, a short handbook of Epictetus's teaching compiled by his student Arrian, opens with its most famous idea: "Some things are in our control and others not" (§1). In our control, in Elizabeth Carter's translation, are "opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions." Outside it are things like our body, property and reputation. Mix the two up, Epictetus warns, and "you will lament, you will be disturbed."

That doesn't mean we have no say over the second list. You can influence your health, reputation and relationships without being able to guarantee what happens to them. The useful distinction is between the choices you can make and the outcome those choices may produce.

Next time something is bothering you, split it in two. What's yours: what you say next, how much effort you put in, whether you apologize. What isn't: how the other person responds, what they think of you, how it all turns out. Then put your energy into the first list.

2. Report the facts, then stop

Marcus gave himself a simple instruction in his private notebook, the Meditations: "Say nothing more to thyself than what the first appearances report" (8.49). His example could have been written yesterday. Someone has told you that a certain person speaks ill of you. "This has been reported; but that thou hast been injured, that has not been reported."

Epictetus put the same idea more bluntly: "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things" (Enchiridion §5). It's close to the Buddhist image of the second arrow, the suffering we add on top of what happened.

This doesn't mean nothing bad ever really happens. Marcus wasn't pretending otherwise. In the next passage (8.50), his advice for briars in the road is simply to turn aside from them. The point is to deal with the event without piling extra meaning on it.

A small way to practice: describe what happened in one plain sentence before you decide what it means. "He didn't reply to my email" is a fact. "He doesn't respect me" is a story you've added.

3. Someone else's judgment needn't become your own

Epictetus took this further when it came to other people. "Remember, that not he who gives ill language or a blow insults, but the principle which represents these things as insulting" (§20).

That's a demanding claim, and he means it to be. He isn't saying a harsh word or an attack has no effect. He's saying that what another person thinks of you is their judgment, and it only becomes yours if you accept it. Someone's attack can have real consequences, for your job or your reputation, without being a reliable verdict on your worth.

He also offered a short phrase for when someone speaks badly of you. People act on what seems right to them, he said, not on what seems right to you. So "you will say upon every occasion, 'It seemed so to him'" (§42).

That phrase doesn't make the other person right, and it isn't a reason to put up with mistreatment. Next time a comment stings, try saying it to yourself: it seemed so to them. Then decide whether it deserves any more of your attention, or a response.

4. Expect friction before it arrives

Marcus opens book 2 of the Meditations with what might be the most relatable line in ancient philosophy: "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial" (2.1).

It sounds cynical, but the rest of the passage isn't. He goes on to remind himself that the person who does wrong is "akin to me," and that "we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands." Expecting difficult people wasn't about writing them off. It was about not being knocked sideways when they turned up, while still remembering they're people too.

Before a meeting, a family dinner or a busy day, it can help to name one bit of friction you're likely to run into. When it happens, it's less of an ambush.

5. Wait before you answer

Seneca wrote a whole treatise on anger, and one of his clearest pieces of advice is also the simplest. In Aubrey Stewart's translation of On Anger: "The greatest remedy for anger is delay" (2.29). The point of waiting, he says, isn't to let the offense slide. It's to give yourself time to form a proper judgment about it.

Epictetus said much the same thing about provocation: "if you once gain time and respite, you will more easily command yourself" (Enchiridion §20).

The modern version is familiar to anyone who has sent an email they regret. Write the reply if you need to. Just don't send it until you've slept on it, or at least gone for a walk.

6. Notice how much of it hasn't happened

In one of his letters to his friend Lucilius, Seneca wrote that "there are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality" (Letter 13.4).

There's a nice bit of humility right after it. Seneca admits this isn't the strict Stoic line, which would call such worries beneath notice. He says he's speaking in his "milder style." It reads less like a lecture and more like advice between friends.

When something's weighing on you, try separating what has actually happened so far from what is still a forecast. Often the forecast is doing most of the damage.

7. Pick it up by the right handle

Epictetus had a striking image for dealing with people we're close to: "Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot" (§43). If your brother treats you unjustly, he says, don't take hold of it by the handle of his injustice, because the situation can't be carried that way. Take hold of it by the other handle: "that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you."

This isn't about excusing what someone did. It's about choosing which part of the situation to hold on to, so that a relationship you care about doesn't get carried entirely by its worst moment.

For an ordinary disagreement in a relationship you want to preserve, ask what else is true besides this hurt. Shared history may help you respond fairly. You can remember that history and still address the behavior or set a boundary.

8. Review the day, then let it go

Seneca described a nightly habit he borrowed from an older philosopher, Sextius, who would ask himself before sleep, "What bad habit of yours have you cured to-day?" Seneca did something similar. Once the lamp was out, he would go over the whole day, hiding nothing from himself. Then he would deal with his own mistakes in a way that was both gentle and specific: "I pardon you this time: see that you never do that any more" (On Anger 3.36). He goes on to name exactly what he got wrong, such as arguing too hard in a dispute.

That combination matters. Letting go of your own missteps works best once you've learned something from them, rather than replaying them at 2 a.m.

Try a two-minute version tonight. Name one thing you'd do differently and one step you'll take tomorrow. If someone deserves an apology, plan it. Then allow the review to end.

Unbothered doesn't mean unfeeling

It's easy to read the Stoics as telling us to feel nothing. That isn't quite what they taught. In On Anger, Seneca says that "the first emotion is involuntary" (2.4). The jolt you feel when someone is rude is natural. What the Stoics cared about was what happens next: whether you agree with the story that jolt is telling you, and whether you let it run the show.

They weren't aiming for indifference to other people either. Marcus wrote that we are made for cooperation. When what bothered him was something he could do something about, he asked himself, "why dost thou not rather act than complain?" (Meditations 8.47).

So the Stoic version of being unbothered isn't a cool pose. It's closer to an image Marcus used for himself: "Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it" (4.49). The waves still come. The rock still gets wet.

One place to start

You don't need to adopt Stoicism wholesale to borrow from it. Pick the lesson that fits your week. If someone is likely to get under your skin, try "it seemed so to them." If you're stewing over something, describe it in one plain sentence. If a reply is burning a hole in your drafts folder, let it wait until tomorrow.

Being unbothered, in the Stoic sense, is something you practice a little at a time.