The Stoic Job Search: Rejection and Opportunity by Andrew Overby

[Thomas1965]

Looking at potential next jobs, you’ll see some good and some worse, many that are irksome and disagreeable, and others that excite. Some opportunities will click right away, others won’t. If looking for work means exposure to a great deal of uncertainty and ambiguity, if it means exposing yourself to insult, letdown, rejection, and the vagaries of other people’s opinions, then where better to turn for insight and assurance than the Stoics?

http://modernstoicism.com/the-stoic-job-search-rejection-and-opportunity-by-andrew-overby/

[helios]

Sounds more like cynicism to me.

[Thomas1965]

In what way cynic ?

[helios]

Assuming the worst outcome in any situation.

[Thomas1965]

A bad outcome is certainly possible so to be prepared for it seems prudent for me.
According to the stoics everything is predetermined so expecting good or bad will not change the outcome. If we get a good outcome we can rejoice even more, if we get a bad outcome we are prepared and get less upset, disappointed, angry....

[helios]

A bad outcome is certainly possible so to be prepared for it seems prudent for me.

There's a difference between being prepared for X and assuming X will happen. "Today X might happen so I better Y" is being prepared. "Today X will happen" is assuming it will happen, and it does not necessarily lead to preparedness.

expecting good or bad will not change the outcome

That's not necessarily true. See for example placebos.

[Thomas1965]

expecting good or bad will not change the outcome

That's not necessarily true. See for example placebos.

If you take medicine or placebo, it will give the same result, doesn't it show the outcome was pre-determined.

I don't fully understand it but somehow you have to assume it will go wrong, not it might go wrong.
I like some stoic ideas but I am not a Stoic, so my knowledge is rather limited.
About negative visualisation: https://ryanholiday.net/practice-the-stoic-art-of-negative-visualization/

[helios]

If you take medicine or placebo, it will give the same result, doesn't it show the outcome was pre-determined.

If you take a random sample of patients and give them drug A, p1% of them will recover. If you take another random sample and give them a placebo, p2% of them will recover. If you take another random sample and give them nothing, p3% of them will recover.
Generally speaking, p1 > p2 > p3 is true for an effective treatment, and p1 ~= p2 > p3 is true for an ineffective treatment.

So, I don't know what you're saying. "It will give the same result"? No. Treating cancer with placebos is not equally effective as treating it with chemotherapy.
That aside, the placebo effect is not p1 > p2. It would be expected that treating a migraine with sugar pills would be less effective than treating it with aspirin. What's surprising is that p2 > p3. What's surprising is that your expectations of the effectiveness of the treatment do affect its effectiveness, to some not statistically insignificant degree.

[1vRz3TCk]

"Assuming the worst outcome in any situation." is pessimism.

Cynicism is an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest.