Life occasionally sucks.

You will have difficult days. People will disappoint you. Plans will collapse. And, if you stutter, sometimes the word you have said effortlessly a thousand times will suddenly refuse to leave your mouth.

The Stoics had a useful idea: the event is one thing; what we tell ourselves about it is another.

REBTS says much the same thing.

Stuttering is inconvenient. Turning it into “I must not stutter, people must approve of me, and it is absolutely horrible if they don’t” creates a second problem—and usually a much nastier one.

Prefer fluency. Work toward it. Prefer easier circumstances. Try to change them.

But stop demanding that the universe cooperate.

You can stutter and still be worthwhile. You can have a miserable day without having a miserable life.

Sometimes wisdom is simply refusing to make a difficult thing catastrophic. As Dr. Neiders often says, “Don’t sweat the small shit” and “it’s all small shit.”