“Be not angry with outward events, for they care nothing for it.” -Euripedes
Natural to the human experience inside a big, indiscriminate world is the sense of feeling out of control—of feeling that the reality of present circumstances is at direct odds with our desires. Our atomic existence on the grand scale makes us highly susceptible to such a feeling. Difficult as it can be to accept at times, life often dictates us—more specifically, the bounds within which we can operate (though not the degree to which we can operate within them), and is wholly uninterested in our plans or preferences. Living well in a brutally objective world requires acutely developed, routinely-evaluated clarity in two things: that which lies within our control, and that which lies outside of it. Once identified, the work then becomes to direct our energy accordingly.
For the person who’s been exposed to any amount of self-development material, the concept of focusing on what’s within one’s control is not a novel one. In fact, overexposure to a superficial version of the concept may desensitize us to it entirely, as it's not merely a matter of focusing on what you can control, but of actively choosing to not emotionally attach yourself to anything you can’t.
A high-functioning understanding of control looks as follows: emotionally aligning yourself only to that which directly relates to your own actions.
Read more"In general remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves—that is, our opinions do." -Epictetus
If you’ve been exposed to any semblance of motivational jargon, you’ve heard the following adage more than once: be fearless. Don’t let fear rule you! Fear is the enemy! The irony of preaching fearlessness as the answer is that achieving this clichéd state isn’t what induces action. Fear itself does that. It could be argued that without fear, we wouldn’t actually do anything. Some of our greatest accomplishments come after moments in which we were filled to the brim with fear—that project launch, that presentation, that pressing question that changed everything. It’s the very harnessing of this fear that leads us to astounding ourselves. With that in mind, it may be safe to conclude that “fearlessness" isn’t what we need; a set of right fears is.
Read more“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
How many of us can say that we want nothing in our lives to be different? Not forward, not backward… That backward part being of particular challenge. If prompted, we could likely list countless things from our individual pasts that we wish would’ve been different. If you've ever had the thought, I wish this would’ve happened differently, or not at all, you're far from unique. Feel free to breathe a sigh of relief at that. But let’s talk about something that is unique: taking such ownership of and responsibility for your life that you truly wish nothing were different.
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