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We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and,
We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position,
the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, ca...
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Today, you won’t control the external events that happen. Is that scary? A little, but it’s balanced when we see that we can control our opinion about those events.
You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it.
honest understanding of what is within our control provides real clarity about the world: all we have is our own mind.
IF YOU WANT TO BE STEADY
The Stoics seek steadiness, stability, and tranquility—traits most of us aspire to but seem to experience only fleetingly.
it’s about filtering the outside world through the straightener of our judgment.
if our judgments are crooked because we don’t use reason, then everything that follows will be crooked, and we will lose our ability to steady ourselves in the chaos and rush of life. If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.
IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSTEADY
“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.1.12
if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things n...
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they will then be agitated, fearful, ...
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The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful
temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace. Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility—other people, external events, stress—you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid
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Epictetus is reminding you that serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility—other people, external events, stress—you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgm...
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THE ONE PATH TO SERENITY
“Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night—there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.4.39
that is in giving up all outside of your sp...
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This morning, remind yourself of what is in your control and what’s not in your control.
Before lunch, remind yourself that the only thing you truly possess is your ability to make choices
In the afternoon, remind yourself that aside from the choices you make, your fate is not entirely up to you.
In the evening, remind yourself again how much is outside of your control and where your choices begin and end. As you lie in bed, remember that sleep is a form of surrender and trust and how easily it comes. And prepare to start the whole cycle over again tomorrow.
“We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What’s not under our control are the body and any of its parts, our possessions, parents, siblings, children, or country—anything with which we might associate.”
According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND.
But this is all good news because it drastically reduces the amount of things that you need to think about.
While everyone else is running around with a list of responsibilities a mile long—things they’re not actually responsible for—you’ve got just that one-item list. You’ve got just one thing to manage: your choices, your will, your mind.
CUT THE STRINGS THAT PULL YOUR MIND
“Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine than what causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that?”
Philosophy is simply asking us to pay careful attention and to strive to be more than a pawn. As Viktor Frankl puts it in The Will to Meaning, “Man is pushed by drives but pulled by values.” These values and inner awareness prevent us from being puppets. Sure, paying attention requires work and awareness, but isn’t that better than being jerked about on a string?
PEACE IS IN STAYING THE COURSE
“Tranquility can’t be grasped except by those who have reached an unwavering and firm power of judgment—the
In Seneca’s essay on tranquility, he uses the Greek word euthymia, which he defines as “believing in yourself and trusting that you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction.” It is this state of mind, he says, that produces tranquility.
we can rest assured we’re heading generally in the right direction—that we don’t need to constantly compare ourselves with other people or change our mind every three seconds based on new information.
tranquility and peace are found in identifying our path and in sticking to it:
NEVER DO ANYTHING OUT OF HABIT
“So in the majority of other things, we address circumstances not in accordance with the right assumptions, but mostly by following wretched habit.
the person in training must seek to rise above, so as to stop seeking out pleasure and steering away from pain; to stop clinging to living and abhorring death; and in the case of property...
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we are studying philosophy precisely to break ourselves of rote behavior. Find what you do out of rote memory or routine. Ask yourself: Is this really the best way to do it? Know why you do what you do—do it for the right reasons.
January 17th REBOOT THE REAL WORK
My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small—your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things.
Most teenagers choose to fool around rather than exert themselves. Halfhearted, lazy effort gives them a ready-made excuse: “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t even trying.”
You have the best teachers in the world: the wisest philosophers who ever lived. And not only are you capable, the professor is asking for something very simple: just begin the work. The rest follows.
SEE THE WORLD LIKE A POET AND AN ARTIST
“Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.”
It takes an artist’s eye to see that the end of life is not unlike a ripe fruit falling from its tree. It takes a poet to notice the way “baking bread splits in places and those cracks, while not intended in the baker’s art, catch our eye and serve to stir our appetite” and find a metaphor in them. There is clarity (and joy) in seeing what others can’t see, in finding grace and harmony in places others overlook. Isn’t that far better than seeing the world as some dark place?
WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOUR CHOICE IS
we all come to philosophy from different backgrounds, and even within our own lives we experience bouts of good fortune and bad fortune.
But in all circumstances—adversity or advantage—we really have just one thing we need to do: focus on what is in our control as opposed to what is not.
