As Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, put it, it's not…

As Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, put it, it's not what happens to us but rather how we react to it that matters. To put that a bit differently, how severely we undergo stress depends not just on the stressful events, but also on how we appraise them."

— from Failure & Resilience (Challenge/Failure/Perseverance/Accountability/Flexibility/Resilience) · *Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organization aExcellence Every Day by Daniel Goleman *

In the book

So the promise of this chapter is not that you will avoid the falls — you won't — but that you can learn to fall in a way that teaches you, recover in a way that strengthens you, and bend without breaking when the wind shifts. The whole of it rests on one ancient hinge, which Epictetus gave us two thousand years ago: it is not what happens to you that matters most, but how you respond to it — and how hard any blow lands depends not only on the blow but on how you appraise it. That appraisal is not just a mood; it changes your biology. — Failure & Resilience (Challenge/Failure/Perseverance/Accountability/Flexibility/Resilience)

Also belongs to

Related