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Being stoic is not being unfeeling; it is not rejecting emotion, circumventing it, or suppressing it from ever existing in the first place.

In fact, it is the opposite of being unfeeling; it is hyper-awareness of the feeling itself. It is confronting the emotion head on—enveloping ourselves in every sensation that it evokes—so that we can intimately understand why these feelings exist, where they originate from, and how it ultimately influences our actions. It is a way to disentangle ourselves from the daunting, convoluted nature of our emotions and see that our only pathway forward is to focus only on the things within our control. It is also in understanding that our emotions are not only completely natural, but are a fundamental component of a fulfilling life; it is all that makes life miserable, and simultaneously, all that makes it worth living.