Hey,
Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
Where I give you a little taste of Stoic wisdom to use in your day.
Today's message comes from Epictetus,
A Stoic slave who freed himself by freeing his mind first.
He writes,
Work,
Therefore,
To be able to say to every harsh appearance,
You are but an appearance,
And not absolutely the thing you appear to be,
And then examine it by those rules which you have,
And first and chiefly by this,
Whether it concerns the things which are in our own control,
Or those which are not.
And if it concerns anything not in our control,
Be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.
As a slave,
Epictetus was so used to having so few things in his control,
That he lived by this very message.
He did not concern himself with things that he couldn't control,
Because it would be a waste of his energy and only put him into a much more depressed state of mind.
Now think how much of your life,
Even though you're not a slave,
Do you outsource to others.
The classic ideas that we will only be happy when we get that raise,
We'll be satisfied just once our boss notices us,
I'll finally rejoice when someone asks me out,
If only I had more likes to a photo.
These kind of thoughts are all outsourcing our happiness to other people,
And more importantly to things that are outside of our control.
Equally,
How often do we let things that don't concern us,
Well,
Concern us.
Whether that's someone who cut you up in traffic,
Or maybe someone is rude to you in public.
Maybe there's terrible weather for your day out.
Now these things can be upsetting,
But what we have to recognize is that they are not in our control,
And no matter how much we lament or curse,
They will not change.
Drivers will always be bad,
People will always be rude,
And the sun will not always shine when we want it to.
When we use our energy to be upset about these things we can't control,
We waste it.
You do though have control over these things.
Your work ethic,
Your opinions,
Your reaction,
Your desire,
Your behaviors.
Your job is to use all your energy on these things,
And the less time you spend on matters that are not in your control,
The more energy you will have.
We have limited time on this planet,
So we need to spend it wisely.
As Epictetus reminds us,
The things that you really need are always within your control.
If you enjoyed this and would like to learn more about stoicism,
I have a whole course dedicated to just that.
I also run lives,
So come check me out on one of those as we discuss these writings in more detail.
Have a great day,
And I'll see you soon.
