Responding vs. Reacting
Between stimulus and response lies a moment of freedom; the Stoic always responds from reason rather than reacting from impulse.
The Stoics called the spontaneous initial impression a phantasia and the assent to it synkatathesis. We cannot control our first impressions, but we can withhold assent and choose our response. This gap between stimulus and response is the space of freedom and the arena of virtue.
Man is not disturbed by events, but by his opinion about events.
Epictetus states this directly in the Enchiridion: people are disturbed not by things but by their judgments about things.
Enchiridion
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about anger
The first flash of irritation is not yours to prevent. Agreeing with it — accepting that the insult was real and serious — is, and that gap is where the work happens.
- What Stoicism says about being wronged
Between the impression and your agreement with it there is a gap, and the Stoics named both halves: phantasia for what arrives uninvited, synkatathesis for the assent you then give it. What was done to you occupies the first half; everything you do about it occupies the second.