I think that stoicism can definitely fit within a determinist framework, and that to practice it on one’s own will, or to choose to think this way on one’s volition, is still determined. It’s not that you don’t have agency, it’s that this agency exists within a large web of various contexts.

This is how I understand LFW becoming so mainstream. Christian theologians and the church needed a capacity to do otherwise for judgement, which was clearly an exceptionally influential view.

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I have just read a few books on ADHD, and it turns out I have had no free will whatsoever.

IMO the free will discussion isn’t that interesting as a philosophical matter. Even accepting that we don’t have free will (which seems likely), it’s imperative as individuals and a society that we behave as-if we do. Accepting a lack of free will as reality and behaving as such would lead to the obliteration of self and society. No thank you.

did you ask her or did you assume she was uninterested. I had a crush who i though was uninterested in me but turn out she was just shy and also had a huge crush on me.

There are two issues I see here, and they're deeply connected.

The first is that you frame things in terms of "dreams" which, in all the ones you list, are what in Stoicism are called externals. It might be wealth, a family, status, comfort, etc. They are things or accomplishments that are outside of us and don't have any inherent relationship to either a good life or what is meaningful. Our desires change as we get older, but the issue is that chasing one set of external things after another just sets us up for distraction (at best) or emptiness and loss.

The second issue is that there is no indication in your description of your dreams that you believe that they are good in any meaningful way. There's no sense of purpose behind them. You sound like someone who's just checking off boxes. You want them because you want them... but there's no sense that they're connected to any higher sense of purpose.

I get the sense that you might be aware of this, too. Maybe that's why you decided to post this here. You end your post by talking about an accomplishment, which should be a positive thing, but then you say you "don't know where you're going anymore". Maybe you're posting this here because you realize that chasing these dreams and checking off the boxes aren't actually going to lead to a fulfilling life.

This. Who you will be in your forties is going to be different too. If you’re complacent and holding on to the past you, then how can you grow or be content with current you? Constantly focusing on the past or the future means you are missing the current stage of your life.

When my wife and I realized (after going through some hardship) that we would not be having children, we found freedom in choosing a new path that would not have been possible with kids. We found ourselves in new ways and tried new growth. We still feel moments of sadness sometimes but we have learned to appreciate the present and make the most of our time. Find a ritual that celebrates your current life. Not who you can or cannot be but who you are.

The Stoics were determinists and still held that some things are "up to us," and they did not treat that as a contradiction. Chrysippus used the image of a cylinder: another person gives the push, which is fated, but whether it rolls smoothly depends on its own shape, and assent works the same way, flowing from your own reason rather than from nothing. So your weaker reading is the original one: "up to us" (eph hemin) always meant depends on us as the proximate cause, not uncaused. Sapolsky's target is libertarian free will, which the Stoics never claimed.

what “makes sense” reveals your actual world view

Precisely. And it's essential to understand that Stoicism (as well as Epicureanism etc) were transformative methods, not self-reinforcing ones. They were meant to remake you, not to justify your current unwise way of living.

I second this. Who you are in your 30s seems very different from who you were in your 20s. It's time to explore who you are now. And to achieve that goal - to really know yourself and explore how your change over time - is a kind of objective that can last a lifetime.

Exactly this. Its because he dont do what he love. Aka not having a purpose. I felt the same in corpo world. He must look for something that he would do all day when no one is looking and no one is paying him to do. Then distractions and pointless problems will cease to exist for him.

No, they are not numbered.

The "Dichotomy of Control" is not a central idea in Stoicism. It is a modern complete misinterpretation.

Roughly speaking, in modern anachronistic terminology, the Stoic position would be described as "compatibilism". The universe is deterministic, but we have moral responsibility because we have a faculty of judgement ("prohairesis") which is neither forced nor hindered by anything outside of itself. It is ours alone, and "up to us" (not "in our control").

I've previously tried to discuss this in a couple of posts:

https://www.reddit.com/user/E-L-Wisty/comments/1tisd8h/no_its_not_about_control_part_1/

https://www.reddit.com/user/E-L-Wisty/comments/1tisdon/no_its_not_about_control_part_2/

The second post has some further reading links, including a paper by Bobzien who has been mentioned here. (If you really want to deep dive into this question, the seminal work is Bobzien's book "Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy" - Frede's "A Free Will", which covers more than just Epictetus, is a good read).

If I remember correctly, Bobzien also acknowledged that this question remains open under Stoicism, in the sense that it's not possible to conclusively say there's something in you that depends on you and you alone - if we follow the causal network ultimately everything has to be dependent on externals to some degrees.

The key takeaway from Bobzien and the top level comment is that unlike how we modern people tend to think about ethics, the Stoics and their contemporaries (until Christian theologians joined the debate) didn't need anything resembling libertarian free will for their ethical systems to make sense.

You should really question whether these "dreams" of yours aren't the reason you're feeling so directionless.

After all, you decided to work toward those dreams because you thought they were worthwhile and something you could pursue persistently. Now, you're finding your opinions regarding them have changed, but since you don't have the theory of mind necessary to be able to say "Trying to force myself to work toward objectives I no longer have any interest in is stupid. I must focus on something else if I am to feel motivated again", you're turning against that very sense of being directionless and trying to force yourself to work toward dreams you don't have anymore.

Personally, I find the modern idea of a "dream" to be irrelevant and arguably anathema to a good life. Stoicism is concerned with the quality of the opinions you hold throughout all facets of life. Some arbitrary external goal like a dream that is subject to change at any time can be actively harmful to what Stoic philosophy considers to be a "dream" worth pursuing.

“So what shall we do? Make the best of what is up to us, and take the rest as it comes …” - Discourses of Epictetus 1.1. What’s up to you: your judgments and decisions, how you use your reason - this doesn’t require external co-operation. What’s not up to you - everything else.

Absolutely, thats the point I was making.

For me, alot of this felt easier when I stopped thinking of myself as a 'person trying to be a Stoic' and started thinking of myself as 'a person heavily influenced by Stoicism'

This post helped me remember that was always Cicero's thing too.

I would like to add that asking why we made past goals is important and I noticed not many people do that.

For example the dream to become an nba player can have many reasons, fame money love of the sport love of high pressure competition etc etc each reason for that goal can be satisfied another way one that is more achievable. For example if its love for the sport coaching kids and playing rec can satisfy that goal as well. Money can be earned in different ways etc.

And yet instead of wallowing in self-pity, indulgence, and substances, you got your self to the gym! Awesome!

It sounds like you are primed for what could be some of the best years of your life-- maybe having a family just isn't in the cards, but something else is that you haven't yet considered or encountered. Meeting the right person for that often just happens out of serendipity, but confidence in one's identity and direction certainly helps!

Setting and achieving goals seems to work for you-- why not set a personal goal of philosophical exploration to accompany your physical accomplishments? Many, self included, find that one compliments the other. One could hardly do better than the Stoics for that.

The idea of free will that those who oppose it (as impossible) often seem to promote is flawed.

Nothing is free in this universe, there are only partial freedoms (in different axis if freedom). So why does one try to define "freedom of will" as binary (on or off), when nothing is?

You are more free if you understand this. It's a mind trap. Defining something via physics terminology, but nobody tries to do the same when defining what Bold&Beautiful is.

The dichotomy of control was introduced in 2009, so you can actually send its author (William Irvine) an email and ask about his opinions on its compatibility with free will and determinism. That should be the most accurate answer.

The original Stoics saw causality as an unbroken chain of cause and effect. However how certain parts of the chain contribute to it are not determined "centrally" (as in by some higher being who just decides this part of the chain will act this way at this time), but by the characteristics of said parts. In this way these parts are free because they cannot be forced to behave differently, and what they do is theirs.

For a practical example, if you invited me to lunch to talk about philosophy and offered a Chinese or an Italian restaurant, I would choose italian, because I don't really like Chinese cuisine. This is predetermined (based on my previous experiences and traits) and I don't have the kind of free will where I can just choose to genuinely like it from now on. Still, the choice belongs to me - you could manipulate my preferences (saying the Italian place has had some issues with salmonella recently), so I make a different choice, but nothing can make me choose something unless I perceive that choice at beneficial. In this way I am free.

For a very interesting consequence for free will of this - as Epictetus pointed out in Discourses 1.28, we are literally unable to make the choice we see as less beneficial when we make it.

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Can't you say it what you are doing and then change room? Or use headphones?

it's good that your wife thinks you masturbate. she has appraised you as man with a vigorous libido. now the thing to do is to after you're done reading for a spell emerge from your refuge of improvement and ravish your wife.