You’re not exhausted because life is chaotic—you’re exhausted because you’re fighting for control you never actually had. The moment you shift your focus to the one thing that is yours, everything becomes lighter, more transparent, and far more peaceful.

I was three hours into a “ninety-minute delay” when the announcement changed, and the entire terminal seemed to exhale in frustration at once. People stood up like they’d been shocked. Someone slammed a bag onto the floor. A man next to me muttered, “I swear, nothing in my life is under control anymore.”

But he was wrong.

Not because the airline would magically fix it. Not because the storm would pass faster. Not because the system suddenly owed him anything.

He was wrong because he was looking in the wrong direction.

In a world where almost everything is outside your influence, there is still one thing—one small but powerful thing—that always belongs to you. And the moment you learn to focus on it, your entire experience of life begins to change.

The age of permanent disruption

If you’ve traveled recently, you don’t need anyone to explain this. Flights are overbooked. Crews time out. Weather systems stack delays across the map. You sprint to a connection only to watch the doors close in your face.

You can feel the emotional temperature in any terminal these days: tight shoulders, short tempers, people snapping at the only visible human in a uniform. It’s tempting to conclude:

“The world has gotten completely out of control.”

Stoicism says: No — this is just the curtain pulled back.

The world has always been out of your control. You’re just encountering that truth more often, more publicly, and with more at stake than before.

That’s why this isn’t a philosophical exercise. It’s a survival skill.

The most radical Stoic idea is brutally simple.

Forget the caricature of Stoicism as being cold or emotionless. Real Stoicism starts with one ruthless question:

What is within my control, and what is not?

Epictetus put it plainly:

“Some things are up to us and some are not.”

Your thoughts, your choices, your attitude, your actions?Up to you.

Airlines, weather, traffic, other people’s beliefs, the economy, your past?Not up to you.

We all nod along when we hear this. But Stoicism doesn’t care what you agree with intellectually—it cares what you do when the board flips from “On Time” to “Canceled.”

That day at the gate, I had two options:

• Join the angry chorus, rehearsing speeches that would change nothing.

• Or step into the tiny circle that was actually mine: my attitude, my tone, my next move.

That tiny circle isn’t glamorous. But that’s where all the peace is.

The invisible tax you’re paying every day

Travel just makes something visible that’s happening everywhere in your life.  You don’t just fight delays.You fight reality.

You replay conversations you can’t redo. You rewrite other people’s behavior in your mind. You argue with news headlines. You keep a mental list of injustices, waiting for the universe to issue a correction.

And then you wonder why you’re tired all the time.

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

— Marcus Aurelius

It’s not just the workload that exhausts you. It’s the wasted effort of trying to control things that were never in your jurisdiction.

In a season of widespread cancellations—of flights, expectations, and plans—this invisible tax becomes painfully expensive.

Stoicism doesn’t tell you to stop caring. It tells you to stop pouring your care into black holes.

The question that changed my travel lifeAfter enough miles and enough “we apologize for the inconvenience,” I started using a simple question every time things went sideways:

 “What part of this is mine?”

Not “What’s my fault?” Not “What can I force?”Just: What’s actually mine to own?The airline’s systems? Not mine.  The weather? Not mine. How does the gate agent speak to me? Not mine.

But:

• How do I speak to them? Mine.

• Whether I treat them with patience or frustration? Mine.

• How do I use the next two hours? Mine.

That question shrank my world in the best way. Suddenly, I wasn’t fighting to control the delay, the line, the schedule, or the behavior of strangers. I was dealing with a much smaller, much more straightforward assignment:

Show up well in the only space I actually govern — my own behavior.

You may think, “That’s not much power.” Exactly. It’s not much.It’s everything.

And once you stop pretending you control more than that, life gets lighter. You set down a suitcase you didn’t even realize you’d been dragging.

Stoicism is not passivity — it’s focused power.

Some people hear “accept what you can’t control” and interpret it as “do nothing.”

That’s not Stoicism. That’s surrender.

Stoicism says:

Stop wasting energy on outcomes you don’t own — so you can pour everything you have into what is yours.

You don’t control whether your project goes viral. You control whether the work is excellent and honest

You don’t control how fast your body responds to training. You control whether you move today.

You don’t control whether someone forgives you. You control whether you show up sincere and straightforward.

Viktor Frankl wrote:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

In a world of grounded planes and shifting plans, that “last freedom” might be the only guaranteed upgrade you’ll ever get.

A 24-hour Stoic challenge (use it today)

Let’s make this practical. For the next 24 hours:

Ruthlessly separate what you wish you could control from what you actually can — and refuse to spend emotional energy on the first category.

Flight delayed? You control how you use the delay.

Someone sends a snarky email? You control whether you mirror it or elevate the conversation.

Plans fall apart? You control how quickly you shift from “Why is this happening?” to “Given this reality, what’s my next best move?”

All day long, ask yourself:

“Is this mine to control, or only mine to respond to?”

If it’s not yours, drop the rope. If it is yours, lean in and take the smallest decisive action you can.

That’s what Stoicism looks like in the real world: Small, unglamorous, powerful choices on ordinary days — and chaotic travel nights.

The peace you’ve been chasing has been here the whole time.

Travel taught me a surprising truth:

Peace has very little to do with how “smoothly” things go.

It comes from how quickly you stop arguing with reality and return to what’s actually yours.

The real scoreboard is simple:

• Did I meet this moment honestly?

• Did I control what I could and release what I couldn’t?

• Did I act like the person I want to be, even when nothing went my way?

Epictetus said:

“Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”

You don’t have to like the delays, the disappointments, or the detours.

But you do have a choice:

Fight a world that doesn’t exist — or learn to walk steadily through the one that does.

All you can control is all you can control. And if you actually do that — entirely, consistently, courageously — that is more than enough.

The planes will still be late.

The lines will still be long.

Life will still unfold in ways you never expected.

But you?

You will know, deep in your bones, that your next thought, your next word, your following action… They are still completely yours. That’s not just Stoicism.That’s freedom.