It’s hard not to look at the lives of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Cato and Zeno and not see what seems like one trauma after another. The loss of young children. Civil wars. Betrayals. Sickness. Criticism. Droughts, deforestation and powerful storms. Then again, it’s hard not to look at our lives and see the same thing. Financial crises. Political unrest. Political violence. A pandemic. Terrorist attacks. Mass shootings. Climate change.

But of course, this is not how a Stoic tries to look at things. Because it’s not a great lens.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whose book Gift From The Sea we have been quoting from recently, was speaking about the repeated traumas that had ravaged Europe in the first half of the 20th century. “The good past is so far away,” she wrote, “and the near past is so horrible and the future is so perilous.” Did that mean that people despaired? That they gave up? Hardly. No, instead, she said that “the present has a chance to expand into a golden eternity of here and now.”

Because of what had happened, the people of Europe had a certain perspective, an ability to find pleasure and peace in small moments–be it a walk in the countryside or a cup of coffee in a cafe. They were, in the Stoic sense, resigned. They had given up expectations or a sense of control and instead embraced what was certain, what was up to them at a given moment–which was in fact that given moment.

As we begin a new year, as we exit another successive year whose essence can be captured with the acronym WTF, we would do well to follow suit. The good ole days are far away. Innocence and ease seems distant. The recent past has been exhausting and trying. The future gapes before us, liable to be still more arduous, difficult, even dangerous. So what is left? Only this here and now. But that can be plenty–that can be an eternity. It can be quite wonderful if we choose it to be so.