Backstory

Some of you might be a little sick of reading about Stoicism as it has become all the rage in recent years and, just like self-help, it's by now a topic that's been written to death. Still, I'm a big fan of it. It made me realize that most of the suffering, disappointment, and unhappiness most of us experience in our daily lives pretty much comes down to the stories we tell ourselves in our heads. And by changing that little voice in our head — the constant narrator of our lives — we can learn to be happier and pity ourselves less.

One of the famous teachings of Stoicism is the impermanence of things — realizing that nothing lasts forever. Now, you probably know that, but just knowing this fact and having it deeply internalized isn't the same. It's usually only when we have a near-death experience that we briefly become aware of all the things in our lives that will inevitably be gone forever.

The impermanence of things is also famously illustrated in a story about a Buddhist teacher who used to think about his precious cup as already broken. He did that in order to avoid becoming too attached to it and to appreciate every moment with it as precious. The assumption is, of course, that this Buddhist teacher, unlike us, has deeply internalized how perishable everything is.

But given how much hypocrisy there is in the self-help movement, and given that lots of Buddhist and Stoic teachings have been bastardized for clicks, I thought it funny if there was just as much hypocrisy among real Buddhist sages :)

See an alternative ending of this comic over at Ko-fi (supporters only).