Aging
A Stoic Approach
Age is Just a Number
It is often said, “Age is just a number,” typically by influencers selling something or by those trying to convince themselves more than anyone else. Age is not just a number. If it were, 48-year-old men would be able to will themselves to NFL contracts, and 52-year-old women would be able to train themselves to Olympic gymnast gold.
They can’t.
“Age is just a number” is offered as reassurance, but it is not wisdom; it is trite euphamism. It is a denial of an obvious fact: age is the real passage of time, and time leaves marks. Bodies change. Recovery slows. Probabilities shift. None of this is optional, and none of it is solved by wordplay and pandering to weakness. Stoicism begins precisely where euphemism and pandering end—with clear sight.
That said, it does not mean age is a verdict, or a moral judgment, or an excuse. It means it is real. And in Stoic philosophy, reality is never something to be argued away; it is something to be understood, accepted, and worked with. To pretend that age “doesn’t matter” is not strength. It is confusion about what matters.
The Stoic question is therefore not whether age is “just a number.” It is this: given that age is real, what remains under our control, and what does reason now demand of us?
What Stoicism Actually Says About Aging
Stoicism does not deny aging, soften it, or romanticize it. It classifies it.
Aging belongs to nature. Anything that belongs to nature is neither good nor bad in itself. It is necessary, universal, and outside our control. To call aging an evil or to lament it as misfortune is therefore philosophical error. To pretend it is not happening is a different error—it is a lie—equally un-Stoic.
The truth is age alters externals: the body weakens, recovery slows, endurance narrows, roles change. These are facts, not failures. But externals were never the measure of a good life in Stoicism. Virtue—reasoned action in accordance with nature—remains untouched by the passage of years. What changes is not what is required of us, but how it is expressed.
Stoicism therefore treats aging as a dispreferred indifferent: real, consequential, and to be managed intelligently, but never decisive in matters of character.
“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.”—Seneca, On the Shortness of Life (Ch. I).
“Let us cherish and love old age, for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it.”—Seneca, Letters, Letter 12.
“Things not in our control are body, property, reputation…”—Epictetus (attributed from Enchiridion 1 in multiple editions).
Where “Age Is Just a Number” Goes Wrong
The slogan fails not because it is optimistic, but because it is inaccurate.
It attempts to defend human worth by denying biological reality. Stoicism does the opposite. It accepts reality without distortion and then denies that reality the power to rule the soul. The error of “age is just a number” is that it confuses these two steps.
By flattening age into irrelevance, the saying removes the need for adjustment, preparation, or humility. It encourages the fantasy that nothing changes—and therefore that no wisdom is required. That is not resilience. It is avoidance.
The Stoic does not say, “This doesn’t matter.”
We say, “This matters in the way it actually matters—and no more.”
A Stoic Replacement for a False Comfort
For the Stoic, “age is just a number” is rejected and replaced—not with bitterness, but with truth.
Age governs the body; it does not govern judgment.
Time narrows capacity; it does not excuse vice.
Decline is natural; surrender is optional.
This framing preserves what the slogan is trying to protect—dignity and agency—without falsifying reality. It does not promise youth. It promises sovereignty where sovereignty is still possible.
“It is not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgments about these things.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion 5.
“You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion (on harsh appearances / impressions).
The Practical Question Stoicism Forces Us to Ask
Once age is seen clearly, the question changes.
The question is no longer, “How do I pretend nothing is changing?”
It becomes: “Given what has changed, what does reason now demand?”
Stoicism treats aging as a shift in strategy, not a collapse of standards. Strength may give way to positioning. Speed may give way to timing. Force may give way to judgment. But responsibility does not disappear. Discipline does not retire. Virtue does not age out.
The task of the Stoic in later life is not to compete with youth, nor to resent it, nor to deny its absence—but to deploy what remains with accuracy, restraint, and honor.
Personal Experience
I have spent most of my adult life in pursuit of mental and physical excellence. In youth, this meant rigorous academic, martial, and physical training. The governing principle of that phase was accumulation.
More degrees, certifications, and honors.
More techniques, speed, flexibility, and rank.
More strength, heavier lifts, greater size.
Accumulation is the gathering of capacity. It is appropriate—and even necessary—early in life. But if it continues unexamined, it decays into vanity. Accumulation that crowds out recovery, mobility, consistency, judgment, foresight, and—above all—usefulness becomes a liability.
Age is not just a number.
Accumulation is unsustainable.
Stoicism does not deny this transition. It demands that it be recognized and acted upon. The Stoic shift is not sentimental; it is strategic:
from accumulation → availability
from proving → revealing
from reaction → positioning
Availability means being physically and mentally ready on ordinary days: joints intact, back reliable, cardio sufficient, attention calm under surprise, judgment sharp under pressure. Availability is not peak performance—it is dependable readiness. It is the capacity to act when needed, and to teach, guide, and transfer knowledge without breaking down.
Revealing supersedes proving. Worth no longer requires demonstration through excess effort. It has already been established through discipline over time. If challenged, it is not argued—it is simply revealed.
Positioning supersedes reaction. Experience replaces impulse. Planning replaces scrambling. Surprise gives way to foresight. One is no longer defined by how fast one reacts, but by how rarely one must.
The lesson of age, properly understood, is not decline. It is reclassification. With a youth well spent, capacity is now sufficient. What defines worth is no longer how much capacity can be accumulated, but how much of it remains usable.
At 57, after well over four decades of study, training, practicing, and accumulating:
I no longer lift for greater size and strength; I train to keep size and strength usable.
I no longer train for more techniques, more martial advancement; I train to deploy martial skill with calm, detached precision, or to avoid its deployment entirely.
I no longer study to accumulate academic accolades; I study to sharpen and expand knowledge, particularly knowledge that is useful and transferable to others.
Final Word
Aging is not a problem to be argued away with slogans. It is a fact of nature, and Stoicism begins with obedience to fact. The body will change. Capacity will narrow. Time will continue. None of this is an insult. It is the price of being alive.
What remains is the only thing that ever mattered: judgment, character, and duty. The Stoic does not seek to “stay young.” We seek to stay governed. We do not chase peak performance for applause. We maintain usable capacity for responsibility. We train not to prove, but to be available and useful. We plan not from fear, but from reason.
In youth, you accumulate. In age, you refine. And refinement is not decline—it is mastery: the disciplined conversion of what you have built into what can be reliably used and useful to others.
Age is not just a number.
What do you say when you see an old lion? The same thing you say when you see any lion: “Holy shit! That’s a lion.”—The Strategic Stoic
Sharp distinction here. The shift from accumulation to availabillity is something that gets overlooked in most fitness or personal development circles. I noticed the same in my own trainng, once I stopped chasing numbers and started focusing on sustainability the whole approach changed. That reframing takes humility tho.
“Decline is natural. Surrender is optional.”
Love it.