While our expectations took a battering in 2020, stoicism arms us with the resilience to continue to pursue our goals. By Johanna Leggatt In the past year of adapting to a global pandemic, of lives played out on Zoom and a mass retreat to our homes, many of us had to draw on inner wells of resilience. We had to be flexible, resourceful, patient. Above all, we have been stoic. Industry professor and director of development with Adelaide University’s Faculty of Professions and Business school, Petrina Coventry, argues many of us were transformed into unofficial stoics this year. Coventry says the tenets of the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy – espoused by Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca – are remarkably similar to the skills needed in 2020’s upended work landscape: a philosophical approach to change, an acceptance of reality and calm under fire.