The Climb #13 – You Don’t Tell a Man With a Limp to Walk Better

For every man who’s been told to just not let it affect you.

Before I really read and understood it better, Stoicism just kind of pissed me off.

Not the philosophy itself. Just the way it got used.

In particular, it was things like the idea that “you choose how things affect you”. It sounds great on a quote card, right? It sounds empowering.

Yeah…you know what else it does? It shames the hell out of people who are already struggling.

Because when you see or hear something, and your body reacts before your brain even knows what’s going on, being told “you chose this” feels like some privileged bullshit.

Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but one thing I know for sure is this:

You don’t get to choose your first reaction.
Your past does.

The way your experiences wired you long ago is what gets to choose.
Yeah. That mess you survived.

For example, I have a quick fuse. And I assure you, I didn’t CHOOSE that.
I didn’t choose the heat that rises in my chest whenever I feel misunderstood.
I didn’t choose the way my body goes on high alert before I can form a coherent sentence.

That was a response that was trained into me. Over years. Repeatedly.

So when someone says “just don’t let it affect you,” that’s like telling a man with a limp to walk better.

It completely misses the point.

If you see a guy with a limp, you don’t yell discipline at him.
The first thing you do is you figure out why the limp is there to begin with.
You look at the injury.
Then you look at the compensation patterns.
Then, finally, you do some strength and balance training until walking different becomes possible.

Emotional reactions don’t work any differently.

For a good chunk of my life, I was sure that my reactivity was a character flaw. Something I should be ashamed of. Something I needed to just overcome with willpower.

News flash…that never worked.

All it did was add a second layer of damage because, instead of just the reaction, it was always followed by the self loathing for even reacting like that to begin with.

Eventually. the thing that changed for me wasn’t toughness.
It was just understanding.

Because as I started to pay attention to my reactions more, I started noticing that they weren’t random. They always seemed to follow patterns. They all had their own specific triggers and the stories were pretty predictable most of the time.

Feeling dismissed? Always a trigger.
Feeling cornered? Definitely.
Feeling like I had to defend my intelligence or my intentions? Yup…thanks high expectations as a child. I appreciate it.

But, the good thing was, once I saw them, I had a serious internal shift.
It wasn’t control per se.
But, it WAS permission.

For some reason, seeing those triggers gave me permission to pause.
Permission to say, “This reaction? It makes sense given my history.”
I gave myself permission to work with the feelings instead of fighting them.

I’m pretty sure Marcus Aurelius knew this, but I feel like that’s the part modern Stoicism skips.
Awareness has to come before control.
You can’t regulate something that you’ve been refusing to see.

So, were the Stoics right about responsibility? Definitely. But what we need to remember is that responsibility doesn’t mean blame. All it means is that over time, you start to own your sh*t.

So yeah, I didn’t choose my first reaction.
But I do get to choose whether I’m fine with that reaction or whether I get to choose the next one instead.

It’s not a quick process, that’s for sure. It’s boring. And it’s unsexy.
And what does it look like? It looks like catching yourself mid spiral and saying, “Yup…there it is again.”
It looks like shortening the recovery time instead of demanding perfection.
It looks like fewer blowups. Not zero…fewer.

THAT is real progress.

What it reminds me of is something Les Brown said about money. He said before he could make a million dollars, he had to believe he could make a million dollars.

And not because belief creates cash. Wouldn’t that be nice, right? If all we had to do was believe and we’d be rich?

No, it’s because belief creates the permission we need to do better.
Permission to try without just quitting when we fail – again.
Permission to fail without just collapsing altogether.
And then most importantly, permission to stay in the game long enough to build something new, and hopefully, better.

Reactions are the same thing.
Before you can control them, you have to believe that you can control them.
Not immediately.
And probably not very cleanly.
But gradually.

And that kind of belief doesn’t come from pretty motivational quotes. The only way you get that kind of belief is by noticing the small wins.

You notice that, maybe for the first time, you had an argument that didn’t escalate into something bigger.
Maybe you were able to pause at a time that you couldn’t before.
Or maybe it was that moment you walked away instead of doubling down like you always used to.

That’s strength being built. You just didn’t notice it before.

If you’re doing it right, Stoicism isn’t at all about suppressing your emotions.
It’s just emotional literacy that eventually leads to emotional mastery.

You don’t beat the limp out of yourself.
You train and train until you finally walk differently.

And, if you’re still limping along some days, that doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It means instead of staying where you were, you’re healing while you’re moving ahead.

That’s the work.
That’s the climb.