All men and women are born equal in the human sense. We are born with the same flaws, the same tendencies. All of us are prone to anxiety. If we don’t all fear the same things, we have the same fear, just as if we don’t all find ourselves drawn to the same temptations or addictions, temptation itself is universal. We breathe the same way, even if we speak different languages and we feel the same hunger, even if we sate it with different foods. And of course, we were all born with the same death sentence, whether we were born recently or five thousand years ago.

All men and women are born similar. Then some discover philosophy.

It is in that discovery that some are given a great advantage over the others. It gives them a solution to that anxiety. It gives them reason with which to question and overcome those temptations. It gives them perspective with which to come to terms with their mortality.

That’s what Stoicism is. The ultimate advantage. The only one you can get in life. We were all born puny, flawed humans. But that changes when we discover philosophy.