“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where do I look for good and evil? Not to the externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.” -Epictetus, Discourses
Think about how many times we worry about gravity on a daily basis. If you’re not a skydiving instructor, you’re probably thinking zero. We don’t worry about it because it’s outside of our control, it simply is. There’s really no reason to be worried about something that is outside of our control, we can only accept it.
What others think and say about us is totally outside of our control. Our health, our wealth, our mortality; all of these things are outside of our control. But flip this around, what a terribly responsible position that would be, to be in direct control of the world. It’s much more relieving to know that we really only have one thing we responsible for: our choices. That we are always making good choices, that’s what we should worry about.
“It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don’t have. Happiness has all that it wants, and resembling the well-fed, there shouldn’t be hunger or thirst.” -Epictetus, Discourses
A light bulb went off in my head the first time I read these two sentences. My whole life, I yearned for the day when I would be simply happy, when all my worries would subside. But this is a stupid way to view the world. All of my worries could have subsided whenever I wanted them to. Epictetus continued on this point, “… freedom isn’t secured by filling up on your heart’s desire, but by removing your desire.” All I had to do was make the conscious decision to be content with what I had. I don’t have to be a millionaire, I don’t have to be famous, I can be me, right now, and enjoy every second of it.
“A podium and a prison are each a place, one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish.” -Epictetus, Discourses
Man has the ability to become content in virtually any situation. Sure, we should like to acquire more material wealth and freedom, but we shouldn’t become so attached to these things that our will depends on them.
“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…” -Epictetus, Enchiridion
Think about all the times we go out of our way to impress someone. What are we doing? We’re worrying about what others think about us. Be content, in everything that you do. There’s no reason to go out of your way to impress someone. If you’re worrying about what you should be worrying about: always making good decisions, they’ll have no choice but to respect you.
“Were you to live three thousand years, or even a countless multiple of that, keep in mind that no one ever loses a life other than the one they are living, and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing. The longest and shortest life then, amount to the same, for the present moment lasts the same for all and is all anyone possesses. No one can lose either the past or the future, for how can someone be deprived of what’s not theirs? -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
My first time reading this was the first time I ever saw time for what it really is. People long for everlasting life, thinking they can save it like they do money. If you could accumulate time like you could money, you’d only ever have one penny, and that’s it. You can only spend the present moment, you can’t spend the future, you can’t spend the past; they don’t even exist. You’ve cured aging? So what? You will still feel like you’re in the present 3000 years from now.
“I may wish to be free from tortue, but if the time comes for me to endure it, I’ll wish to bear it courageously, with bravery and honor.” -Seneca, Moral Letters
I’m going to try my best to remember this quote if I’m ever being tortured, but I’ll probably just wet my pants. I would love to be as manly as the men who lived 2000 years ago.
“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Neuroscientist, Sam Harris created a guided meditation where he helps you witness this happen. If you consciously think of something awful, you will feel awful. If you consciously think of something good, you will feel calm. We can’t constantly control what we think, but we can choose not to follow bad thoughts. Not by forcing ourselves to think of something else- like Alan Watts says, “don’t force these thoughts out, this will have the same effect as trying to smooth water with a flat iron.” But we can simply guide our attention away from these thoughts, and have a much better day.
“When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety.” -Epictetus, Discourses
Every time I’m scared, I remember this quote, and I realize just how silly it is to be scared of anything.
“What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won’t be found doing or saying anything contemptible.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
As long as you are doing a good job at maintaining the only thing you can control, that being, always making good decisions, no one should despise you. But if they do, you’re not to be faulted.
“I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid. -Cato the Younger, quoted by Diogenes Laertius in Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
I like to think that I’m somehow related to Cato because of my last name. I’m mostly Irish so I highly doubt that I am. Cato was supposedly the truest Stoic to ever live. The stoic philosophers looked to him as a guide. He was apparently a person of few words, because he only spoke if it was necessary. There’s another similar quote by Zeno that I like: “The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is so we might listen more and talk less.”
AND ONE BONUS!
“Two things must be rooted out once and for all- the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me and the former concerns me not yet.” -Seneca, Letters From a Stoic
This is my favorite quote of all time. How much time do we waste in pointless grief; we’re often dying before our time. The only thing that exists is the present, that’s where we should stay.