We Can Only Do What Is Ours To Do: A Classical Solution #1

On some things in life, material and non-material, we have an impact. On others, we don’t. ​Some things are in our power, the rest are not. ​Some actions are ours, the rest belong to others.

In Rome, a slave turned teacher, Epictetus, gave talks so helpful that his students' notes became a 2000-year bestseller. The most admired of these notes was of a talk known for centuries as The Manual for Living. This track brings this Stoic Philosophy alive in ways that are more about Finding Emotional Freedom than about being stoic or philosophical.

For more talks in the theme of classical wisdom, listen to the playlist "Ancient World Wisdom".

Transcript

Basis for emotional freedom today.

On some things in life,

Material and non-material,

We have an impact.

On others we don't.

Some things are in our power,

The rest are not.

Some actions are ours,

The rest belong to others.

What we're going to do today is to bring the Stoic philosophy alive in ways that are more about finding emotional freedom than about being Stoic or philosophical.

In fact,

I'd like to entitle this talk Teachings,

Modern Teachings from a Former Slave.

Essentially,

Emotional freedom,

Modern teachings from a former slave.

That former slave is Epictetus,

Who was born around 50 A.

D.

,

50 C.

E.

He was born a slave in what is present-day Turkey and lived in Rome.

And on the basis of his wisdom,

He was given his freedom there.

But he was banished by the Roman Emperor at the time,

Along with all the other philosophers,

And he spent the rest of his life in Greece.

He was known as a philosopher,

As a Stoic philosopher.

But this talk is not about Stoic philosophy,

At least not in the contemporary meaning of the term.

It's about providing a very practical way of relating to the world that is as relevant today as it was in ancient Greece and Rome.

So from the perspective of being Stoic,

What the modern meaning of the word Stoic would be,

And taken from a dictionary recently,

A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or without complaining.

It's that phrase without showing their feelings that is my problem with the modern understanding of the word Stoic.

Because essentially,

If you insult me,

I can react by being angry and show it.

That's a common reaction.

I can be angry and not show it,

Which is what is meant by this definition.

Or,

The third alternative,

I can choose not to be angry.

And it is this last approach that would have been Epictetus's approach.

Isn't a Stoic resigned to whatever happens?

Isn't a Stoic supposed to be an unfeeling,

Emotionless brute,

Essentially?

And the answer there is no,

Absolutely not.

Stoicism is not about eliminating emotions.

It's about minimizing negative emotions like stress and anxiety and anger.

It's not about accepting your powerlessness.

It's about taking power over all that is inside your control.

Your attitudes,

Your wants,

Your desires,

Your opinions about what has happened.

And especially about taking power over your happiness.

Happiness,

The Stoics tell us,

Comes from within.

It's a choice.

And as the slave-turned-teacher Epictetus said,

You can bind up my leg,

But not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.

The Stoics were happy.

They wrote about happiness and they taught others to be happy.

And so what I want to do today is to start passing on their wisdom along to you.

Basically to share the Stoics' time-tested strategies for being happy.

So again,

In the modern understanding of the word Stoic,

A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.

Similarly,

The word philosophy,

Modern understanding of that,

The study of the meaning of life,

Especially when considered as an academic discipline.

So if philosophy is the study of the meaning of life as an academic discipline,

We have to look at the definition of academic.

Adjective 1,

Relating to education and scholarship.

2,

Not of practical relevance,

Of only theoretical interest.

So given those definitions of Stoic,

Philosophy and academic,

The contemporary version of a Stoic philosopher would be someone who hides their emotions while lecturing on the meaning of life without any practical relevance to daily living.

Heaven help me,

That's not where I want to go today.

So what we're going to talk about is not about being Stoic in that sense,

Not about philosophy in that sense.

In today's world,

Epictetus would be considered a life coach,

A motivational speaker,

And a teacher.

And we want to address the practical relevance of his teachings into making our own lives today better.

I also want to introduce to you the Greek word apatheia.

You're going to recognize it as the root of the word apathy,

Although the true meaning of apatheia was very different from the word apathy.

It meant a state of mind undisturbed by passion,

Essentially equanimity rather than indifference.

And it's that state of mind undisturbed by passion is the true meaning of the word Stoic.

But just in case you want a more modern philosopher,

You may recognize the words,

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,

None but ourselves can free our minds.

I should be able to do that with a Jamaican accent because that comes from Bob Marley's Redemption song.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,

None but ourselves can free our minds.

That's where we're heading with Stoic philosophy here.

Stoicism is gaining more ground today.

Theodore Roosevelt was a Stoic and used Stoic principles to cope with his life as a soldier and as a political leader.

Viktor Frankl was unquestionably Stoic in character.

He was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who founded Logotherapy,

A school of physiotherapy that describes a search for life's meaning as a central human motivational force.

Both Logotherapy and Stoicism would argue that if a situation cannot be changed,

We are challenged to change ourselves,

Because a person always has the freedom to alter his own attitude to a problem.

And then Vice Admiral James Stockdale,

Who was the James Stockdale who ran as vice president with Ross Perot,

But again had a Stoic background and was a prisoner of war for more than seven years in Hanoi,

Vietnam.

He said in his book,

After ejection I had about 30 seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed.

And so help me,

I whispered to myself,

Five years down there at least,

I'm leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.

It turned out to be seven years for him in a Vietnamese prison and he credited Stoicism with saving his life.

And my thanks in terms of gaining this knowledge also goes to one of the other teachers on Inside Timer,

Although he hasn't been around much in the last year or two.

Chris Largent wrote a book,

The Best Advice in History,

Which was basically taking the notes that one of Epictetus's students created out of his lecture.

And what Chris Largent did was to take those notes and said,

Well if these are the notes,

What would the whole lecture have looked like?

And from his book,

The Best Advice in History,

I put together this presentation which we're starting on today.

So by way of background here,

Epictetus was an advisor.

He would never have considered himself as an authority figure.

His aim would have been to make you the authority figure.

Epictetus,

Among other things,

Is calming down the overachievers,

Affirming you're doing just fine,

You don't need to push too hard.

And the term cultural transformer,

Which would cover everybody on this call because the members of Inside Timer are among the cultural transformers on the planet in terms of looking at new ways of living,

Saying that the old-school mainstream approach just isn't good enough.

So as cultural transformers we are very much spiritually oriented and can be spiritually overachievers.

And so we tend to be overachievers just from the perspective of we came here with such a big job to do.

And if you don't understand that we came here with such a big job to do,

You know,

Doing a really good job of ignoring the mainstream media for at least the last five or ten years.

There's so much to be done and yet the message behind Epictetus' teaching is we can only do what is ours to do.

We're doing just fine in the process.

So the big picture here is the rule,

Epictetus' rule,

Which is his key to living well.

Applying the rule and then third part living the carefully examined life.

And the rule,

The key to living well is we can only do what is ours to do.

Put another way,

We can only do,

We can only do what is ours to do,

We can't do what is someone else's to do.

It's a simple rule.

Understanding that rule on a day-to-day basis can take a lifetime.

From a Hindu perspective the concept of Dharma,

The duty or destiny of each individual,

Is again about we can only do what is ours to do,

We can't do what is someone else's to do.

So on some things in life,

Material and non-material,

We have an impact.

On others we don't.

Some things are within our power,

The rest are not.

Some actions are ours,

The rest belong to others.

So examples of things I can control.

My thoughts,

Essentially how I react to impulses in my head.

My opinions,

My goals,

My conscious actions,

My character.

Examples of things I can't control.

Your thoughts,

Your opinions,

Your goals,

Your character.

I can't control the weather,

The sun and the moon,

World hunger,

World peace,

World poverty.

And just in case any of you are thinking,

Yes but Trevor I can make a contribution towards world hunger,

World peace,

World poverty.

Yes you can make those contributions and you can control how you show up in the world around hunger,

Peace and poverty.

But world hunger,

World peace,

World poverty on a global scale of 8 billion other people,

Is well outside of the control of anybody,

Any individual on this call.

Example of things that I can partially control.

I can partially control the outcome of me competing in a sport.

I can partially control the outcome of running a business.

I can partially control the outcome of running for political office.

Indeed I can partially control my health.

And I can take actions in my life that are going to contribute towards those outcomes.

And to the extent that I can contribute towards those outcomes I have partial control.

To the extent that for instance I can't control the other players in the sport,

I can't control the outcome.

I can't control the macroeconomic climate in which I'm conducting a business.

And therefore I can only show up and run that business the best way I know how.

But there are factors outside of my control.

The outcomes of running for political office.

I can control how well I run for office.

I can't control the other people running for office.

I can't control all of the other people in the country that are voting.

Let me introduce the concept of SMART goals.

S-M-A-R-T,

SMART goals.

SMART from the perspective of an acronym.

SMART standing for S-Specific,

M-Measurable,

A-Achievable,

R-Relevant,

T-Time-Bound.

So if I'm going to set myself a goal,

The best goals,

The SMART goals where they're specific,

They're about a specific goal.

They're measurable.

And especially the aspect of measurable means that somebody watching me going about my life and about completing that goal,

It would be easy for them to be able to measure whether I had completed that goal or not.

Because the measurable portion of it allows that to be measured.

Achievable,

How do I know when I've completed the goal?

And is the goal specifically within my control?

I'll come back to this in more detail.

Relevant,

The goal has got to be relevant to my bigger picture.

And time-bound,

Because if it isn't time-bound,

How do I know when I'm supposed to have completed my goal?

So for instance,

A goal learning more about stoicism this year is specific about stoicism.

Would it be measurable?

No,

It wouldn't be measurable because we've only said learning more about stoicism,

But how much is more?

If we get more specific about measurable,

It may be reading three books about stoicism this year.

That now becomes measurable because it includes three books.

It's achievable because all that's concerned here is me reading those books.

Relevant to a bigger picture of living life more fully if I want to have more philosophical understanding of life.

Time-bound by saying this year.

So we can change learning more about stoicism this year to be more specifically smart.

But at another example,

I could say that I have a goal of,

I want to have lunch with Becca,

This talk is for you.

If I say I have a goal of having lunch with Becca next week,

Presuming that we could end up in the same town for long enough for lunch,

Would that be an appropriate smart goal?

The answer to that would be,

Yeah,

But it's not within my control because what if Becca turned around and said no?

Now I can set myself a goal of inviting Becca for lunch next week.

And then it's all within my control.

If I give myself a goal of actually having lunch with Becca,

I'm now giving some of my power away to Becca in order to achieve that goal.

And therefore it's not within the measure of smart goals.

It's not a smart goal.

And therefore the reason I'm talking about these smart goals,

And especially around being self-controlled,

Is I can only do what I can do.

We can only do what is ours to do.

And having lunch with Becca becomes something that involves Becca.

It's outside of my control.

As soon as I say it as,

I'm going to invite Becca out for lunch next week,

Then that goal is fully self-control.

And I can do what is mine to do,

Because that is within my control.

So as spiritual beings,

Epictetus is calming down the overachievers.

Those of us who would very much like world peace,

Solutions to world hunger,

World poverty,

We are all overachievers.

And yet,

Even underachievers are overachievers who are confused by the apparent futility of human achievement.

And sometimes overachievers are simply overwhelmed by the limits of power that we have as human beings having a spiritual experience.

I've put this one in my notes,

The advanced class version.

Because Epictetus' rule is we can only do what is ours to do.

The advanced version is it's actually not about achieving.

It's not about doing.

It's about being.

As human beings,

We can only be what is ours to be.

We can't be anyone or anything that is not ours to be.

So the advanced class could rewrite the rule as we can only be what is ours to be.

And to give benefit to Oscar Wilde,

Who has been attributed with some doubt,

But possibly Oscar Wilde said be yourself.

Everyone is already taken.

There's no value in me showing up as Becker tomorrow.

That role is already taken.

The role of Trevor Lewis hasn't been taken by anyone but me.

So I can show up as me.

It was Aristotle actually who said give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.

Essentially,

We are born and grow in our early years into that basis,

That foundation of who we are to be.

I can also reference Maladoma Somme,

Who was born in West Africa as a medicine man in that tradition.

The village that he was born into,

They would talk to a child in utero while it was still inside its mother and ask it what it was coming here to the planet to do.

And on that basis,

They would name the child based on what information that in utero baby told the elders as to why it was coming to the planet.

That's a level of knowledge that most of us I suspect are not familiar with,

That ability to talk to in vitro being.

So if we know which actions are ours and which is someone else,

We won't feel limited.

We'll take responsibility for our own actions.

We'll be okay also with somebody else's self-expression.

Since we can control their self-expression and they can't take away our self-expression.

So that we can only do what is ours to do,

Gives us a tolerance for what we can't control,

And more acceptance for what we can control.

If we try and do things that aren't within our power,

We won't have much impact.

I can't control what you're thinking right now.

I can't control what you're going to do with the rest of your day.

All of that is outside of my control.

Even from a perspective of giving a talk on Insight Timer,

I may have the intention of doing the talk in terms of sharing information.

This is information that I know about,

That I think could be useful to other people.

But my job is simply to present the information in the best way possible.

If anybody on this call chooses not to listen,

Not to care,

To do other stuff at home while they've got this on in the background,

Whatever you're doing at your end,

I've got no control over.

And if you choose to let this talk impact you or not impact you,

I've got no control over that.

I can only do what is mine to do.

And what is mine to do is to present this information.

The rest is up to you.

While I was putting this presentation together a couple of years ago,

Back in 2022,

I was reading through the New York Times and came across an article by Ben Crow,

Who is a life coach and tennis coach.

And he had an article published in the New York Times about playing tennis.

And four points that he made in there.

Focusing on the future or the past is wasted energy,

Because we can't control either one.

There is only the present moment.

Focus your energy on the present moment,

Because we have no control over the past or the future.

No point in a tennis match is worth more than any other,

So why bother treating them any differently?

If you have to do something or achieve something to be someone,

You will never be content.

If you have to do something or achieve something to be someone,

You will never be content.

And we don't know ourselves enough,

And the bits we do know,

We don't love enough.

Again,

Where Ben Crow is coming from here is one of be in the present moment,

Be content with who you are and what you're doing,

And love who you are.

Because that is who you are anyway.

And for those of you who have been around me any length of time know how much I love working with affirmations.

And so the serenity prayer adapted into affirmations really corresponds to Epictetus' rule of we can only do what is ours to do.

Because with the serenity prayer,

Put in terms of affirmations,

I am serene enough to accept the things I cannot change.

I am courageous enough to change the things I can change.

I am wise enough to know the difference.

Those three correspond to we can only do what is ours to do.

And with a slight tongue-in-cheek,

I'd love to add in a fourth affirmation there in terms of,

And I am relaxed enough not to take the whole thing so damn seriously.

Life is too short to worry about it.

So the real meat becomes,

What is mine to do?

If we can only do what is ours to do,

How do I work out what is mine to do?

Is this,

Whatever this is that I'm focusing on,

Is this within my control?

If no,

I may need to either accept it or let go of it.

Is this something that aligns with my values and principles?

If no,

Then maybe I shouldn't pursue it.

Again,

Just to let go of it.

And the third question here,

Is this something that I have the skills and the resources to do?

If no,

It may not be mine to do,

Unless I want to develop the skills and resources to actually be able to do it.

In which case,

The first thing on my list of things to do is to develop those skills and resources.

So last week I was talking about 3D versus 5D.

Essentially,

5D being Age of Aquarius,

New Age,

The direction that we were going in.

And essentially,

Being able to do only what is mine to do,

And not try and do what is not mine to do,

Has a very much 5D connotation to it.

Monica,

You've thrown in a question here.

Yes,

I want to get to that,

To be more aware of what I'm focusing on.

Is it of any value?

Well,

Actually,

If you're not focused on the future,

And you're not focused on the past,

Your attention is on the present.

And that in itself is of value,

Because the present moment is the only thing that exists.

It's the mindfulness side of meditation,

Just in terms of being mindful of what you're doing.

One of the Tibetan Lamas had this,

I believe I shared it last week,

In terms of bad news and good news,

The 5D version.

The bad news is you're falling through the air,

Nothing to hang on to,

No parachute.

The good news is there is no ground.

And essentially,

This is another twist on we can only do what is ours to do.

If you're falling through the air,

And there's nothing to hang on to,

There's no parachute,

Then there's no point trying to hang on to anything,

Trying to reach for your parachute cord,

Because if they're not there,

There's nothing you can do about it.

And if the good news is there's no ground,

Guess what,

Nothing to worry about,

Keep enjoying the journey.

And from a non-attachment perspective,

Quoting the Bhagavad Gita,

Chapter 6,

Detachment is not that you own nothing.

Detachment is that nothing owns you.

And the idea of we can only do what is ours to do,

Doing it in the present moment,

Includes not getting attached to stuff that isn't ours to get attached to.

And getting attached to anything means that we're getting attached to something that is not us.

So I'm welcoming questions at this stage.

I'm going to keep talking while I'm waiting for questions here.

Definition of attached,

Thank you,

Becca.

So actually,

Attachment becomes focusing on anything that is not ours to do.

It's focusing on anything that is not ours to be.

If we try and be something that we're not,

It's an attachment to a concept,

To an idea.

If we try and do something that is not ours to do,

It's also really an attachment to an idea,

Because the idea that we're attached to is that there's any value in getting attached to something that is not ours to do.

When I get to attach to the ideas that,

Well,

If only the world thought this way or that way,

The world would be a better place.

And the more I got attached to that,

The more I'm tied up to that thought process,

That very idea.

And actually,

This is something that I've been talking about recently in terms of thought forms.

I talk about it in terms of a thought form.

Marriage,

In fact,

Relationships in general,

Have so many thought forms around them.

And marriage,

Especially,

Has this Disney fairy tale romance thought form that people get attached to that thought form,

Whereby it's very easy to stop seeing the other person that we're supposed to be in relationship with and get excited about this attachment to the thought form.

So I think the short answer to your question,

Becker,

In terms of definition of attached,

Is one of any state of mind that thinks that we have some degree of ownership over something that we do not have ownership of.

It's attachment to what is not ours to do,

Attachment to what is not ours to be.

I want to put this into the context of four levels,

Four levels of thought in terms of.

.

.

So let me go through it from bottom to top.

So level four,

Everyday processes,

What happens every day in terms of experiences.

The level above that,

Level three,

Would be the patterns and processes on a meta-level.

Level three being complementary opposites,

Yin-yang,

Motion and rest.

Whereas level one is just reality as a whole.

It's the gods,

The universe,

Everything is a complete way of being.

So for instance,

Every intersection,

Every time I drive up to an intersection,

That is an everyday process,

An everyday experience.

There may be cars coming the other way,

There may not,

And the only way to be sure is stop at the intersection,

Make sure who's coming,

Who's not coming,

And drive forward accordingly.

Now from a traffic system perspective,

There are systems and processes in place in terms of stoplights,

Traffic lights,

Advises that if you wait for the lights to turn green,

It's safe to go forward,

And you're supposed to stop when the lights turn red,

And it makes the whole traffic system flow better and flow safer.

The traffic system itself,

The stoplights,

Are level three in terms of the patterns that help us organize and understand our lives.

The fact is at level four,

Even if there's a traffic light at the particular junction that I come to,

That traffic light may be green,

And it should be safe for me to drive straight through those traffic lights,

And unfortunately on the level four everyday processes,

Every once in a million,

There is somebody whose brakes are failing,

Or speeding,

Or for whatever reason,

They drive straight through red and cause an accident.

But the level,

So level four of the everyday processes,

Level three are the patterns,

Level two are complementary opposites.

So with the traffic light example,

The complementary opposites would be red and green,

Safe,

Unsafe,

Stop,

Go.

And level one would,

In terms of reality as a whole,

Would be the whole system of traffic and transportation moving as a whole.

So applied to the rule of we can only do what is ours to do,

Level four in terms of everyday processes,

Some things in life,

Material and non-material,

We have an impact,

On others we don't.

Some things are within our power,

The rest are not.

Some actions are ours,

The rest belong to others.

The everyday processes of we can only do what is ours to do,

Is that what's mine to do in this moment?

And what is mine to do in this moment,

In terms of level four is,

What's mine to do is to continue talking in this presentation.

I know that is what what is not mine to do is to do this talk tomorrow,

Because I haven't booked a slot on Insight Timer to do this talk.

So this time tomorrow,

It will not be mine to do to do this talk on Insight Timer.

So at level three,

Level three is the patterns,

Understanding patterns.

And at level three,

The concept of we can only do what is ours to do is a pattern.

It's a guideline to help us organize our lives in the same way as traffic lights are patterns to help us organize our life that way.

And so at level two,

Complementary opposites,

The concept of yin-yang,

The concept of motion and rest,

And therefore the same way the concept of what is mine to do,

What isn't mine to do,

Are complementary opposites at the second level of the four levels,

Until you get up to level one,

Where level one is the reality as a whole.

And from level one,

I am the one.

Therefore,

Everything is mine to do,

If I so choose.

I am that I am.

So,

Just to run those in reverse,

The four levels,

Level one,

Reality is the one,

I am the one,

Level two,

Complementary opposites,

What is mine to do versus what's not mine to do.

Level three,

Patterns and processes on a meta-level,

And I am influencing patterns just by being,

And the everyday processes of doing what is mine to do.

So,

Just to apply that to a different rule here,

In terms of the fourfold order,

Fourfold order from a perspective of input,

Processes,

Output,

And feedback.

The input is knowing what's ours to do,

The process is living what's ours to do,

The output is the example that we set for others in the process of doing what is ours to do,

And the feedback of other people's reaction to us living what is ours to live,

Doing what is ours to do.

So,

Actually,

That covers slide 48 out of about 190 odd.

Reviews

I learned a lot today. I need to listen again to make sure I a orbed it

Can you please tell me your "serenity prayer" again? I didn't have pen and paper handy! Thank you 😊🙏🌟

Edited just to say thank you again!