Sitting on the Tarmac in The Land of Stoicism

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Article available in Spanish here.

At the end of May, I took my son Jonah (21), his girlfriend Molly, and my daughter Hannah (16) to New York City for a long weekend. Jonah and Molly were leaving for Israel and Hannah and I decided to join them for the weekend to inhale the art and culture that New York has to offer.

However. This trip to NYC started with me practicing a bit of Stoicism. We had tickets for La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night. Our plane was supposed to land at LaGuardia at 5pm. LaGuardia was about 40 minutes away from our hotel and the opera house. We were going to have dinner at 6:15 and go to the opera at 8. 

Men make plans, the universe laughs.

Our plane took off and landed on time. So far so good. However, after we landed the pilot notified us that because of thunderstorms in the NY area, the airport was on lockdown and planes were still at their gates. We’d have to wait for a gate to open up. He said he’d inform us every fifteen minutes on progress, implying that this might take a long while. 

I’ve been to many opera houses around the world, but this was my first time at the Metropolitan Opera, and La Boheme is one of my most favorite operas. Most importantly, I wanted my kids to experience La Boheme. It was Jonah’s girlfriend Molly’s first time at the opera, and I was really excited for her. I had got the best tickets the opera house had to offer, which were about to turn into a pumpkin at 8pm if we kept vegetating on the tarmac.

I could have gotten upset. The pre-Stoic version of Vitaliy would have. I have just written a book, Soul in the Game – The Art of a Meaningful Life, where I spend a third of the pages discussing Stoic philosophy and how I apply it in my daily life. Now, I had an opportunity to apply three Stoic philosophy exercises at once: dichotomy of control, reframing, and negative visualization. 

Let’s start with the dichotomy of control. Epictetus says that some things are up to us (they are internal to us) and some are not (they’re external to us). Most things in life are external; we have no control over them – the weather, how other people behave –actually, almost everything. I have control over how I behave and how I interpret the situation I’m in right now. 

As Marcus Aurelius succinctly put it, “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” I could have thrown a fit, complained, gotten agitated. Other than losing more of my hair (which is already facing imminent extinction) and ruining the mood of my kids and everyone around me, I wouldn’t have changed anything by such behavior. The gate would open when air traffic control decided it was safe for other planes to take off. We would either go to the opera or we wouldn’t; either way, the money I spent for the tickets was already gone.

Reframing allows us to embrace life as it happens to us and to color the events that happen to us from a palette of our own choosing, instead of having life randomly choose colors for us. 

At first, I reframed our predicament as an opportunity for more focused time. Another Stoic, Seneca, would remind me about the shortness of our time. I would not get this time back. I did not want to waste my time worrying about things I could not control, so I kept my headphones on and went on working on an article on my laptop. 

After thirty minutes or so, I put my laptop away and focused on my kids, who had an innate stoical attitude toward missing an opera: Jonah and Molly were watching Netflix. Hannah was reading a book. Some would argue that a 16-year-old and two 21-year-olds would definitely prefer sitting for hours in cramped seats on an unmoving plane to hearing “fat ladies sing.” There might be some truth to this. Maybe they were being polite or did not want to hurt my feelings, but all three were telling me how much they were looking forward to the opera. We discussed what we could do that night in place of going to the opera. NYC offers plenty of other nighttime activities. 

I reminded myself to visualize that things could have been so much worse. Stoics call it negative visualization. Instead of safely sitting on the ground, we could have been… I let my (negative) imagination run wild, which is easy. We could have been in Eastern Ukraine, bombed by stepmother Russia. The list of bad things that could have been happening to us was unendingly long. By comparison, sitting in an air-conditioned plane for a few hours and missing an opera did not seem so bad. 

Negative visualization is a powerful tool because it puts most problems we encounter on a daily basis in the proper perspective: They are not problems; they are just life happening not in precise accordance with our expectations. As I am writing this, I am reading about 19 kids who senselessly died in a Texas school shooting. The parents of these kids would have given anything to spend an extra 30 minutes stuck on a plane with their kids. That is not the negative visualization I want to go to too often, but it does put a lot of my everyday noise into a proper perspective. 

We sat on the plane for almost two hours. Once we got off, while we were waiting for our luggage, I started to formulate a plan. We would go with our luggage directly to the opera. I called the opera house. I explained our predicament. They politely explained that they had no place for our luggage. We’d have to go to the hotel, which was a mile away from the opera house, and drop off the luggage first. I don’t know if it was my positive attitude, the lady on the phone taking a pity on us for our predicament, or just the opera house’s policy, but I was told that if we didn’t make it to the opera before 8pm, I should call back and they would either give us a credit or refund the money. 

The story doesn’t have a traumatic conclusion, and that is a good thing. NYC had a bit more traffic than usual, and we arrived at our hotel at 7:50. If we had 20 extra minutes we would have made it to the opera. The opera house kept its promise and refunded me for our tickets. 

We went to dinner and did the most touristy thing – we went to Times Square. Hannah’s dream to play a NY street chess hustler came true – she played one. She got very close to winning, but came out with a draw. Over the next two days we walked in Central Park and even rented a boat and spent an hour on a lake in the park. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, saw Phantom of the Opera, ate a lot of terrific food, and my kids and I hosted an IMA client dinner.

Hannah, inspired by her “almost win” in Times Square, wanted to play more street chess. We spent an afternoon at Bryant Park (which is now my favorite place in NYC), where both Hannah and Jonah played chess. Jonah, who is a big fan of Lex Fridman’s podcast, ran into Lex next to our hotel. They had a short but pleasant conversation. Jonah, who is a proud son, quick on his feet, took this opportunity to pitch me to Lex as a guest for his podcast. 

Despite spending two extra hours on the plane and missing La Boheme, this turned out to be a great trip. Life will often go according to its plan, not ours. We should look at these moments as little Stoic tests, or even better, opportunities to practice Stoic training. It’s training because, by constantly practicing these Stoic techniques, we can reprogram ourselves, and by doing this we’ll reduce the negative volatility of our emotions and thus make our days a bit brighter.

I’ll conclude by quoting what Marcus Aurelius said in his Meditations: “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” 

If you liked this personal article about practicing Stoicism, you might like my book, Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life. It’s a book of inspiring stories and hard-won lessons on how to live a meaningful life. Part autobiography, part philosophy, part creativity manual, Soul in the Game is a unique and vulnerable exploration of what works, and what doesn’t, in the attempt to shape a fulfilling and happy life. You can order it here.

Painting is by my father, Naum Katsenelson

Reading And Listening

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Six years ago, at her preschool graduation ceremony, my daughter Hannah was asked what she wanted to become when she grew up. She thought for a second, smiled, and said, “I want to be a writer, like my daddy. I had never thought of myself as a writer, but rather as an investor who writes. Hannah didn’t know the difference. When my kids see me work, I’m either reading or staring at my laptop.

This year was transformative for Hannah. In addition to becoming Bat Mitzvah (read my speech to her here) she fell in love with reading. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone been so obsessed with reading. I remember that it started in late spring. She read a book or two. To encourage her to read I volunteered to pay her $10 per book read. For the next few months she read nonstop. I was slightly concerned that she was gulping books for money and not for the pleasure of reading. However, a few months and $120 later she came to me and said she didn’t need to get paid to read. She felt guilty because I was buying the books and paying her. I was glad she had made that decision. But I have never seen anyone – really, anyone – so engrossed in reading. All she thinks about is what book she’ll read next.

My wife and I don’t set any limits how much money she can spend on books. When Hannah wants a book, she looks first in Overdrive (a digital library). If it isn’t available there, she buys it on Kindle or we go to Barnes & Noble. Our trips to Barnes & Noble are my favorite part of her reading addiction. I am so glad that Barnes & Noble stores are still around, as we go there almost once a week now.

Our only rule is that Hannah can buy just one book at a time – that’s what keeps us going book shopping. At Barnes & Noble we get something from Starbucks. I get a tea or coffee; she gets a pastry or sugary drink. Hannah grabs a book she wants to buy, and we both sit in comfortable armchairs, surrounded by books and Starbucks’ aroma, and read for hours. This is our special time.

Sometimes on Fridays, when I pick both of my girls up from school, I take Hannah and her almost-five-year-old sister, Mia Sarah, to the B&N. It used to be a bookstore with a Starbucks in it. Post-Amazon and the digital apocalypse, it turned into a Starbucks that sells books and toys. I hadn’t noticed how many toys they carry until I visited it with Mia Sarah. On our first visit she wanted me to buy her toys. She and I made a deal: We only go Barnes & Noble to buy books (and Starbuck’s cake pops). Now, even before we walk into the store, she says, “Dad, yes, I know we only buy books here.”

While Hannah is slobbering all over her teen book’s section, Mia Sarah and I are searching for her book in the kids’ section. My hope is that being close to books, having a positive experience associated with them, will encourage Mia Sarah to become a reader just like her older sister. Also, we’re creating our little tradition – going to bookstores.

Reading has had an interesting side effect on Hannah: Over the last few months she has started writing stories. Her writing is very colorful, highly descriptive; her stories are dramatic, and the characters in them are very dark (Freud would have a great field day with her characters). I notice that Hannah is now reading to write. This happened to me when I started writing: I started reading for two people, for the reader and for the writer in me. As a reader you are focused just on the content, but as a writer you start paying attention to how this content is packaged and delivered. You start paying attention to sentence structure, to author’s voice, and the list goes on.

My two older kids have expressed little interest in investing, which makes me just slightly sad – it would have been awesome to research stocks together. Hannah and I had a conversation about that recently. Her mother wants her to become what every Jewish mother wants her offspring to become – a doctor. I told Hannah, “Don’t try to please us in your career choice; the only person you want to please is yourself. We’ll support whatever choice you make. We just want you to be happy, and if you are happy we’ll be happy with you.”

This brings me to a question I get asked often by my readers: How do I get my kids to listen to classical music? I know this is not where you thought this piece was going – I am anything but an authority on parenting. I attended the same university of trial and error as every other parent. But I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot as classical music has gradually taken a larger and larger role in my life. It is an incredible world, and I want my kids to be part of it.

I found that my kids, especially when they were young, would go to great lengths to spend time with me; and just like all kids, they love sweets. When I take kids to classical music concerts we make part of the trip about food, be it Dairy Queen, burgers and fries, or cookies during intermission.

I still remember my father taking me to see Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor when I was 11 years old. I sat through the opera without too much fidgeting. And I still remember two things: a short fragment from the aria of Prince Igor – “Oh, give me, give me freedom so I can repay for my shame” – and, what is even more memorable, the dessert cake my father bought me during intermission. I waited patiently for intermission, because I was promised a cake. This was more than thirty years ago. Trip to the opera or to the symphony were a special experience and thus were accompanied by desserts.

Falling in love with classical music is a process. The music is not always easy to “understand”; it requires “work”– those are words my father used to describe classical music. Classical music – I am generalizing here – is multilayered and complex; thus it requires the listener to listen multiple times before it clicks. Listening to something you don’t yet appreciate (“understand”) is not necessarily fun; it may be “work.”

However, my parents listened to classical music at home, in addition to taking me and my brothers to concerts. They exposed us to the music, and that is all you can do as a parent. When I heard this music later in life, it had already been deposited somewhere deep in the memory bank of my childhood; so I was not hearing it for the first time. My kids and I listen to classical music at home and in the car going to and from school. At times we watch YouTube videos together.

Mia Sarah was exposed to classical music through watching cartoons like Little Einsteins. A few days ago she came to me and said, “Dad, what is this music – ta da da da daaa?” She was singing the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I fired it up on YouTube, she sat patiently on my knees, and we even conducted together. She lasted about seven minutes, which was plenty.

Another question I get asked by readers is what pieces to use to introduce kids to classical music and opera. The following is anything but an exhaustive list, and I am not even sure it’s the right list, but it’s what comes to mind today.

Click here to listen.

Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO at IMA, a value investing firm in Denver. He has written two books on investing, which were published by John Wiley & Sons and have been translated into eight languages. Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life (Harriman House, 2022) is his first non-investing book. You can get unpublished bonus chapters by forwarding your purchase receipt to bonus@soulinthegame.net.

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