The doctrine that only virtue is good is what makes Stoicism a religion-shaped thing rather than a set of coping tips, and it is also what most modern practitioners quietly decline. Preferred indifferents let a Stoic take the medicine and grieve the child while denying that either changes whether the life is going well. Ancient critics thought this either heroic or a verbal trick, and said so; the Stoics answered that anything which can be taken from you cannot be what your happiness consists in. Epictetus is the least forgiving on this point and Seneca, who was extremely rich, is the most accommodating.