The world has transformed dramatically in a short time. Not long ago, you wouldn’t leave home without a few coins in your pocket for the pay phone. Running water indoors was a mark of privilege, and the social elite still relied on arranged marriages to preserve power and reputation—a custom that, in some corners of the globe, remains alive today. The momentum of change shows no sign of slowing; technology keeps accelerating, reshaping the world faster than anyone can track.
Yet one thing remains immune to progress: haters.
Lots of haters.
There will always be those who waste their limited time throwing shade and talking shit—spreading gossip, speculating about motives, stoking rumor fires, and sneering in comment sections. Their kind has existed as long as humanity itself, and they’re not going anywhere.
Better to make peace with that fact ASAP.
History’s great stories are replete with figures who possessed everything—wealth, authority, status, but what separates the wise from the doomed isn’t fortune or intellect, but the superpower of being at ease in one’s own skin.
George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones universe offers a telling example. King Viserys I Targaryen, remembered as “Viserys the Peaceful,” ruled a realm where absolute power so often curdled into cruelty. Though his judgment could waver and his foresight faltered when it came to succession, he was notably composed—a rare virtue for one who commanded an empire.
At a tournament in King’s Landing, a swaggering knight rode before the royal stands and loudly declared allegiance to Viserys’s cousin, Rhaenys, “The Queen Who Never Was.” The king merely rolled his eyes. He’d heard this grievance before—the old resentment over a crown denied.
But his counselor bristled at the insult and whispered that the offender’s tongue could be cut out for such insolence.
BTW, we put together a video for everyone here to see what Geeky Stoics was up to this past weekend.
Viserys waved off his advisor, saying, “Tongues will not change the succession. Let them wag.”