What Is the Significance of Step 1

The Significance of Step 1

Supporting Sterling's 5-Step System with Encheiridion 1-5

## **Step 1 as the FOUNDATION of Everything**

### **What Step 1 Actually Does:**

- **Axiom**: Only virtue is good, only vice is evil

- **Rule**: Don't desire externals

**This isn't just the first step - it's the FOUNDATION that makes all other steps possible.**

## **THE REVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE:**

### **1. COMPLETE VALUE SYSTEM REPLACEMENT**

**Before Step 1:**

- Health, wealth, relationships, success, reputation = genuinely good

- Sickness, poverty, loss, failure, criticism = genuinely bad

- Life organized around pursuing externals and avoiding losses

**After Step 1:**

- Only character excellence matters

- Everything else is indifferent (neither good nor bad)

- Life organized around virtue development only

**This is a TOTAL WORLDVIEW TRANSFORMATION**, not just a minor adjustment.

### **2. THE DESIRE ELIMINATION PROTOCOL**

**Encheiridion 2's Radical Instruction:**

> "For the time being remove utterly your desire"

**What This Actually Means:**

- Stop wanting things outside your control

- Stop fearing things outside your control

- Stop basing happiness on external outcomes

**This is asking people to ELIMINATE most of what they think life is about.**

### **3. THE THERAPEUTIC FOUNDATION**

**Without Step 1, nothing else works:**

- **Step 2** (Control test) is meaningless if externals still matter to you

- **Step 3** (Precision) is academic if you're still attached to outcomes  

- **Step 4** (Emotion connection) can't help if you won't give up external valuation

- **Step 5** (Real-time correction) has nothing to correct if Step 1 isn't accepted

**Step 1 is the PREREQUISITE for all psychological change.**

## **THE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENT:**

### **Step 1 = The Price of Admission to Stoicism**

**What Sterling is Really Asking:**

- Give up caring about your health as genuinely good

- Give up caring about your wealth as genuinely good  

- Give up caring about others' opinions as genuinely good

- Give up caring about success/failure as genuinely good

- Give up caring about relationships as genuinely good

**In exchange for:**

- Complete emotional immunity to external circumstances

- Unshakeable happiness based on virtue alone

- Freedom from anxiety, grief, anger, and fear about externals

### **This is Why Most People Reject Stoicism:**

Step 1 demands they give up **everything they think life is about** in exchange for **something they can't yet understand** (virtue-based happiness).

## **THE LOGICAL NECESSITY:**

### **Why Step 1 Can't Be Skipped or Softened:**

**If you still desire externals:**

- You'll suffer when you lose them (violates Stoic promise of happiness)

- You'll make decisions based on external outcomes (violates virtue focus)

- You'll be manipulable by external rewards/punishments (violates freedom)

- Your emotions will be hostage to circumstances (violates emotional immunity)

**Step 1 eliminates the SOURCE of all non-virtuous motivation.**

## **THE PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE:**

### **Step 1 Changes Everything Immediately:**

#### **Decision Making:**

- **Before**: "What will get me the outcome I want?"

- **After**: "What's the virtuous response here?"

#### **Relationships:**

- **Before**: "How can I make them happy/get them to love me?"

- **After**: "How can I treat them virtuously regardless of their response?"

#### **Career:**

- **Before**: "How do I get promoted/avoid being fired?"

- **After**: "How do I do excellent work regardless of recognition?"

#### **Health:**

- **Before**: "I must stay healthy/avoid sickness"

- **After**: "I'll take reasonable care of my body but accept whatever happens"

### **The Immediate Liberation:**

Once Step 1 is truly accepted, you're **immediately free** from:

- Anxiety about outcomes you can't control

- Anger when externals don't go your way

- Grief when you lose preferred indifferents

- Fear about future external circumstances

## **THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE:**

### **Step 1 = Accepting Sterling's Radical Core**

**This step embodies:**

- **†A6**: Only virtue is good, only vice is evil

- **†SC4**: No externals are ever good or evil

- **†SC5**: All beliefs that externals have value are false

- **†SC12**: Common-sense view of emotions is completely wrong

**Step 1 IS the complete rejection of ordinary human value systems.**

### **The Stoic vs. Common-Sense Divide:**

- **Common sense**: External things can genuinely improve or harm your life

- **Step 1**: External things are completely irrelevant to your actual wellbeing

**This is the UNBRIDGEABLE GAP between Stoicism and normal thinking.**

## **THE ULTIMATE SIGNIFICANCE:**

### **Step 1 = The Stoic Conversion Experience**

**What happens when Step 1 is truly accepted:**

- Complete reorientation of life priorities

- Immediate emotional relief from external pressures

- Foundation for all future character development

- Entry into a completely different way of being human

**Without Step 1:**

- You're just learning intellectual techniques

- The other steps become coping mechanisms rather than transformation tools

- You remain in the common-sense framework that causes suffering

**With Step 1:**

- You've crossed over into the Stoic worldview

- Every other technique becomes powerful because it's built on the right foundation

- You're on the path to actual sage-hood

## **Why Step 1 is THE MOST IMPORTANT:**

**Step 1 isn't just the first step - it's the CONVERSION STEP.**

Everything else in Stoicism is just **developing the implications** of what you accept in Step 1.

**If you truly accept Step 1, you're already philosophically transformed.**

**If you don't accept Step 1, nothing else in Stoicism will ultimately work.**

**Step 1 is where you either become Stoic or remain in the common-sense world that Stoicism is designed to replace.**