Not only that we prepare for setbacks (premeditation malorum), when obstacles do happen they provide us with an opportunity to strengthen ourselves. The Stoics consistently emphasized that we must change our attitude towards obstacles. The best way to face challenges and hardships is to face it with a growth mindset in that there is always an opportunity to learn and to improve our weaknesses.
Top Quotes About Facing Obstacles By the Ancient Stoics
"“Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is possible… it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire overwhelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the conflagration is absorbed, consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher”
"No prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood...one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever."
"For manliness gains much strength by being challenged; nevertheless,"
"Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting."
""No man is brave and earnest if he avoids danger, if his spirit does not grow with the very difficulty of his task"
"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
