Bro-icsm? Broism? Stoicism?

It’s about more than self-evolution; isn’t it?

I told one of my friends that I was looking at a lot of stoicism blogs lately. She snorted, raised an eyebrow and watched as her dog sniffed a sexy bush near the old, brick electric building and said, “Well, that’s super bro of you.”

“Wait. What? You mean Stoicism is actually bro-icism?” I asked.

“It is now.”

“Wait, if I’m kind of into it, does that mean I’m a bro?”

“Absolutely.” She laughed but I think she meant it. Then she must have had pity on me because she said, “No. You’re not a bro-ic. You care too much about your community to be a bro-ic. You’re more a true Stoic.”

We continued our walk around our little Maine town and I gave it some thought. I had a philosophy professor in college who listened to a lot of Indigo Girls but also was always talking about the Sstoics. He was a pretty manly guy in a typical I’m-a-college-professor-trying-to-be-tougher way. He drank beer at the local bar. He had hunting dogs.

He was kind of an early bro if you took out the Indigo Girls part.

And recently, it seems like a lot of blogs and life hacks and guys making a lot of money telling us how to live our lives are talking about stoicism.