Stoic Path: Psychological Immune System

You've probably already heard the phrase, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." It implies that stress and hardship paradoxically make you stronger (as long as you survive it).

Stoics train for the ability to make calm, rational decisions at all times. To step back from the things that are forced upon you and view them without strong emotions requires emotional resilience. Just like your body's immune system, your emotional resiliency or psychological immune system only grows stronger with acute (short-term) stress.

Everyone has the potential to overcome the worst the world has to offer. Most of us are fortunate not to have to go through war, torture, or the Holocaust. So we should take advantage of peaceful times to challenge our psychological immune system whenever possible to be ready for wartime. Expose yourself to the world and hear the critics and learn to deflect their words. It's not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters.

Let's say, for example, when raising your child, you go out of your way to have them not experience bad things. You keep them in a bubble. You will have raised a hypersensitive child that doesn't have the emotional resilience to handle the real world. Instead of protecting the child from hearing mean words from other children, maybe it is best to help your child learn to handle these situations.