Let people think you’re a fool...
CommentaryIf you wish to make progress, then be content to appear senseless and foolish in externals, do not make it your wish to give the appearance of knowing anything; and if some people think you to be an important personage, distrust yourself. For be assured that it is no easy matter to keep your moral purpose in a state of conformity with nature, and, at the same time, to keep externals; but the man who devotes his attention to one of these two things must inevitably neglect the other.
Some people view philosophies such as Stoicism as a way of achieving external success at work, etc. Epictetus, though, advises his students that if they’re really committed to philosophy and the pursuit of wisdom, they’ll probably need to sacrifice some external things. They may need to accept the fact that other people will look down on them for that and think they’re just plain idiots.
