Aiming at Control and Losing Control in the Workplace

Last week, I gave an interview to a student writing a thesis about how Stoic philosophy and practice can productively inform the domain of business.  One of the topics that inevitably came up was what has come to be called the "dichotomy of control".  This is a distinction articulated by the Late Stoic philosopher Epictetus between what is in our control, or is "up to us" (ep'hemon in Greek) and what is not in our control or up to us (ouk ep'hemon). It has come to play a centrally i...