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Wes & Erin say hello to Easter and goodbye to the Amazing Mr. Chekhov. Wes talks about his upcoming The Stoic Guide To Happiness course on the educational app Himalaya (promo cod STOIC to listen for free). He talks about how there’s some crossover between ancient Greek Stoicism and psychoanalysis (and not just, as has long been acknowledged, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Stoicism asks us to pry apart two different forms of suffering: on the one hand, everyday and ordinary suffering that we cannot avoid in our lives; on the other, suffering that is avoidable and the product of our vanity: this involves some sense of being wronged (or “narcissistically injured”) by other people, society as a whole, or even fate. Both psychoanalysis and Stoicism help to get us beyond such attitudes by teaching us to mourn our losses as losses (and something we can’t control), instead of holding onto them as a kind of personal insult. This state of mind becomes our liberating locus of control, if we can cultivate it.