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“Slavery resides under marble and gold.”
Socrates, perhaps the wisest person to ever live, used to say that “nobody does wrong willingly.” Meaning that no one is wrong on purpose either. Nobody thinks they’re wrong, even when they are. They think they’re right, they’re just mistaken. Otherwise, they wouldn’t think it anymore!
How much more tolerant and understanding would you be today if you could see the actions of other people as attempts to do the right thing? Whether you agree or not, how radically would this lens change your perspective on otherwise offensive or belligerent actions?
“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”
“The cause of my irritation is not in this person but in me.”
Remember, each individual has a choice. You are always the one in control.
This is what Epictetus means about the study of philosophy. Study, yes, but go live your life as well. It’s the only way that you’ll actually understand what any of it means. And more important, it’s only from your actions and choices over time that it will be possible to see whether you took any of the teachings to heart.
“If you should ever turn your will to things outside your control in order to impress someone, be sure that you have wrecked your whole purpose in life. Be content, then, to be a philosopher in all that you do, and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself first that you are and you will succeed.”
“We buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like.”
An investor without discipline is not an investor—he’s a gambler.
A mind that isn’t in control of itself, that doesn’t understand its power to regulate itself, will be jerked around by external events and unquestioned impulses.
A woman says she wants to meet a nice guy and get married—yet she spends all her time around jerks.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once put it, “There is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives,” a war inside each individual between the good parts of their soul and the bad.
“Make sure you’re not made ‘Emperor,’ avoid that imperial stain. It can happen to you, so keep yourself simple, good, pure, saintly, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, and strong for your proper work. Fight to remain the person that philosophy wished to make you. Revere the gods, and look after each other. Life is short—the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.”
Is this really so bad? What do I really know about this person? Why do I have such strong feelings here? Is anxiety really adding much to the situation? What’s so special about __________?
Ask yourself: What haven’t I considered? Why is this thing the way it is? Am I part of the problem here or the solution? Could I be wrong here?
The point of this metaphor is to highlight how much effort we put into making sure money is real, whereas we accept potentially life-changing thoughts or assumptions without so much as a question.
For, as Epictetus reminds us, “the first and greatest task of the philosopher is to test and separate appearances, and to act on nothing that is untested.”
The samurai swordsman Musashi made a distinction between our “perceiving eye” and our “observing eye.”
An event is inanimate. It’s objective. It simply is what it is. That’s what our observing eye sees.
“Atreus: Who would reject the flood of fortune’s gifts? Thyestes: Anyone who has experienced how easily they flow back.”
“Believe me, it’s better to produce the balance-sheet of your own life than that of the grain market.”
“Nothing will ever befall me that I will receive with gloom or a bad disposition. I will pay my taxes gladly. Now, all the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which, my dear Lucilius, you should never hope for exemption or seek escape.”
“What is bad luck? Opinion. What are conflict, dispute, blame, accusation, irreverence, and frivolity? They are all opinions, and more than that, they are opinions that lie outside of our own reasoned choice, presented as if they were good or evil. Let a person shift their opinions only to what belongs in the field of their own choice, and I guarantee that person will have peace of mind, whatever is happening around them.”
And our opinion is often shaped by dogma (religious or cultural), entitlements, expectations, and in some cases, ignorance.
“If only the hearts of the wealthy were opened to all! How great the fears high fortune stirs up within them.”
No one who achieves these quiet virtues experiences buyer’s remorse.
Part of what Epictetus is saying here is that attention is a habit, and that letting your attention slip and wander builds bad habits and enables mistakes.
I’m learning. My sparring partner is learning too. This is practice for both of us—that’s all. I know a bit more about him or her, and from my reaction, they’re going to learn a little bit more about me too.
The only way to recognize them? By their character.
It’s not enough to wish and hope. One must act—and act right.
Here is how to guarantee you have a good day: do good things. Any other source of joy is outside your control or is nonrenewable.
“Where is Good? In our reasoned choices. Where is Evil? In our reasoned choices. Where is that which is neither Good nor Evil? In the things outside of our own reasoned choice.”
But what does this flattery accomplish? Nothing. Worse, the admiration of shiny accolades distracts us from their true purpose. Also, as Demosthenes explains, it betrays the very ancestors who inspire us. He concluded his speech to the Athenian people with words that Seneca would later echo and still resounds centuries later. “Reflect, then,” he said, “that your ancestors set up those trophies, not that you may gaze at them in wonder, but that you may also imitate the virtues of the men who set them up.”
“The greatest portion of peace of mind is doing nothing wrong. Those who lack self-control live disoriented and disturbed lives.”
Our intention is not to be thanked or recognized, but to help and to do what we think is right. Our focus is not on what happens to us but on how we respond.
It’s important for us to remember in our own journey to self-improvement: one never arrives. The sage—the perfect Stoic who behaves perfectly in every situation—is an ideal, not an end.
Seneca writes that unbruised prosperity is weak and easy to defeat in the ring, but “a man who has been at constant feud with misfortunes acquires a skin calloused by suffering.”
The best way to get there is by focusing on what is here right now, on the task you have at hand—big or small. As he says, by pouring ourselves fully and intentionally into the present, it “gentle[s] the passing of time’s precipitous flight.”
Or worse and more precariously, we don’t feel good about our accomplishments or talents until some third party validates them.
We tend to associate busyness with goodness and believe that spending many hours at work should be rewarded. Instead, evaluate what you are doing, why you are doing it, and where accomplishing it will take you. If you don’t have a good answer, then stop.
“What is your vocation? To be a good person.”
“Indeed, no one can thwart the purposes of your mind—for they can’t be touched by fire, steel, tyranny, slander, or anything.”
You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
“get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”
Maybe your parents were poor role models, or you lacked a great mentor. Yet if we choose to, we can easily access the wisdom of those who came before us—those whom we aspire to be like.
we owe it to the people who took the time to record their experiences to try to carry on the traditions and follow their examples—to be the promising children of these noble parents.
The Process in your life—assembling the right actions in the right order, one right after another—you too will do well. Not only that, you will be better equipped to make quick work of the obstacles along that path. You’ll be too busy putting one foot in front of the next to even notice the obstacles were there.
Rivers,” Publilius Syrus reminds us with an epigram, “are easiest to cross at their source.”
The raging waters and deadly currents of bad habits, ill discipline, chaos, and dysfunction—somewhere they began as no more than just a slight trickle. Somewhere they are a placid lake or pond, even a bubbling underground spring.
