How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: The Stoic Way

How to stop waiting and start living is one of those questions most of us carry for a long time before we take it seriously. I know I did. I was scrolling through Instagram one evening, not really doing anything, just lost in the algorithm, when a quote stopped me completely. It was attributed to Freud at the time, though I later found it was from the philosopher Bryan Magee. It read: most people don’t want freedom, because freedom requires taking responsibility, and most people are afraid of responsibility.

I was going through my divorce at the time. I was also trying to build something financially sustainable and figure out what kind of life I actually wanted. And in that moment I realised something uncomfortable: I had been waiting. Waiting for the situation to resolve itself, waiting for my ex-partner to say something, waiting for the money to come, waiting for the picture to be perfect before I started living it.

That quote made me realise I wasn’t in the driver’s seat of my own life. I was in the back, hoping someone else would steer it in the right direction.

Why Waiting Feels Safer Than Choosing

Waiting is more comfortable than choosing. That is the honest truth of it. When we wait, we don’t have to show the world who we are, what we value, or what we stand for. We can go with the flow and see what happens. The outcome, whatever it is, belongs to circumstances, not to us.

But that comfort comes at a price. When we let other people and events choose for us, we have to hope they have our best interests in mind. Most of the time, they are simply following their own. And so we drift, hoping the current takes us somewhere we wanted to go.

There is also something seductive about the victim position. When things go wrong, it is not our fault. We are not to blame. We were just passengers. But what that position quietly takes from us is something far more valuable than the comfort it offers: it takes away our agency. Every moment we spend waiting, we are letting go of who we are becoming.

What the Stoics Mean by Freedom

When I first started thinking seriously about freedom, my idea of it was entirely external. Freedom meant not having a boss, not having to be somewhere at a certain time, not having to answer to anyone. It was freedom from constraint, from obligation, from other people’s demands.

Stoicism reoriented that completely. The Stoics were not interested in external freedom. They were interested in inner freedom, the kind that cannot be taken away by circumstances, other people, or misfortune. And they had a very specific name for what makes that possible: prohairesis, our faculty of moral choice.

Prohairesis is the capacity to judge, to choose, and to respond with reason rather than react from habit or fear. For Epictetus, who spent part of his life as a slave, it was the only thing that was truly and completely ours. Everything else, our body, our reputation, our money, our relationships, can be taken. Prohairesis cannot be taken. It can only be abandoned.

Waiting is a form of abandoning it. When we wait for external conditions to align before we start living, we are handing our prohairesis over to fortune and hoping fortune is generous. It rarely is, and it was never supposed to be.

The Stoic Responsibility That Most People Avoid

There is a version of responsibility that is easy to accept. Taking responsibility for our career, our finances, our output. That kind is uncomfortable but manageable. We can always point to external factors if it does not work out.

The Stoics were not talking about that kind. When Epictetus spoke of responsibility and what is truly up to us, he meant responsibility for our character, our judgments, and our responses. Not the outcomes of our actions but the quality of the actions themselves. Not who we appear to be but who we actually are.

That is the demanding kind. Because when things go wrong there, we cannot point outward. We cannot blame the circumstances or the timing or the other person. It comes back to us. And that is exactly why most people avoid it.

To take that responsibility requires knowing yourself first. Socrates knew it. The Oracle at Delphi inscribed it on the temple. We can only take responsibility for ourselves if we know who we are. And knowing who we are means being willing to look at the parts we would rather not examine, the fears we carry, the beliefs we inherited, the patterns we repeat without understanding why.

That is uncomfortable work. It takes courage. And it may require support, a good friend, a therapist, a coach. The students went to Epictetus for exactly this reason. We are not meant to do this entirely alone, and needing support is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that we are taking it seriously.

Marcus Aurelius and the Gap Between Where We Are and Where We Want to Be

The starting point is not a dramatic decision or a grand gesture. It is something quieter: accepting where we are right now. Not as a final destination, not as a verdict on who we are, but as an honest starting point.

Marcus Aurelius did this in his Meditations every day. He was an emperor and one of the most powerful men in the world, and he still wrote privately about his anger, his impatience, his struggles with difficult people. He was mapping the gap between where he was and where he wanted to be, not to punish himself for the distance, but to use it as the material for his practice.

That is self-compassion in the Stoic sense: not softness, but honest kindness toward ourselves in the present moment. If we are too harsh with ourselves about where we are, we cannot see it clearly enough to change it. And if we cannot see it clearly, we cannot move.

The Stoics were also clear on something else: the present moment is the only moment available for making changes. The past is gone. The future is unknown. Now is where our choices live. And the closer we get to understanding that, the less we need external conditions to be perfect before we begin. The state of flourishing the Stoics called eudaimonia is not a future reward. It is the result of how we act right now.

How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: The Stoic Way

This is not about making everything change at once. The Stoic approach is incremental and consistent, not dramatic. Here is the pattern that has helped me, and that I still return to.

Start by recognising where you are. Not with judgment, just with awareness. This is my starting point. This is what I am working with.

Most of us have a version of this list: when the divorce is behind me, when the money situation is more stable, when I finally feel ready. The list keeps growing and the moment never comes.

Use the compass of calm and peace. This is not about avoiding discomfort. Even difficult decisions can carry a sense of rightness when they are aligned with who we are. That quiet feeling of “yes, this is mine” is the Stoic signal that we are moving in the right direction.

And then repeat. Life gives us an enormous number of moments to practice. Small ones and large ones, in conversations and decisions, alone and with other people. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to be a little better, in each moment, than we were in the last. The Stoic sage who does everything perfectly is an ideal, not an expectation. We are students, all of us. Taking responsibility is not about arriving. It is about consistently choosing to show up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I keep waiting for the right moment to start living?

Because waiting is more comfortable than choosing. When we choose, we have to show who we are and take responsibility for what happens. When we wait, the outcome belongs to circumstances rather than to us. Stoicism identifies this as a form of surrendering our prohairesis, our faculty of moral choice, to fortune. The problem is that fortune does not have our interests in mind. Only we do.

What does Stoicism say about taking responsibility for your life?

Stoicism distinguishes between two kinds of responsibility. The kind most people talk about is external: taking responsibility for outcomes, success, money, status. The Stoics were not primarily interested in that. They were interested in taking responsibility for our character, our judgments, and our responses. That is the more demanding and more meaningful version, because it is the only kind that no one else can do for us.

How do I stop being passive and take control of my life?

The Stoic starting point is acceptance of the present moment, not as resignation but as an honest reckoning with where you actually are. From there, the question becomes: what is available to me right now? Not when conditions improve, but today, with what I have. Small consistent choices in the direction of your values build more momentum than waiting for the perfect moment to make a large one.

Is waiting always wrong according to Stoicism?

No. The Stoics practiced the reserve clause, acting with full intention while accepting that outcomes are subject to fate. Patience and timing are part of Stoic wisdom. What the Stoics objected to was waiting as a way of avoiding choice, as a passive surrender of agency. The difference is whether we are waiting because we have judged it wise to do so, or because we are afraid of what choosing would reveal about us.

What is Stoic freedom and how does it relate to responsibility?

Stoic freedom is inner freedom: the power to choose our response regardless of external circumstances. It is inseparable from responsibility because both live in the same place, our prohairesis, our faculty of moral choice. When we take responsibility for our judgments and responses, we claim our freedom. When we surrender that responsibility to circumstances or other people, we lose it. The two are not opposites. They are the same thing looked at from different angles.

Take the Wheel

That insignificant moment scrolling through Instagram changed something in how I thought about my own life. Not because the quote was revolutionary, but because it named something I had been avoiding: the fact that I was waiting, and that the waiting was a choice.

Stopping waiting and starting to live the Stoic way does not mean having all the answers or feeling ready. It means recognising that the lights are already on green. The present moment, exactly as it is, is where our life actually happens. Not the version we are waiting for. This one.

This is your life. You deserve to take the wheel.

Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Want to Learn More?

If this resonated and you are ready to start building your own philosophy of life, a conversation with Benny as your Stoic coach can be a good place to begin. Not to be told what to think, but to have the space to figure it out. You can also sign up for the newsletter, The Pause, or watch or listen to the Via Stoica Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

About the Author

Benny Voncken is the founder of Via Stoica and host of the Via Stoica Podcast. He has practiced Stoicism as a way of life for over six years, spoken at Stoicon, and led Stoic walks across Europe. Through Stoic coaching, he helps people use Stoic principles and practices to develop their own philosophy of life: one that gives them the tools to face obstacles, navigate change, and find more balance and peace. He writes, teaches, and walks wherever the philosophy takes him.