Committing to What We Control
The greatest power unlocked by Stoic thinking and living is that of freedom from personalizing externals—that is, from taking any matter that occurs outside of you as a personal affront or a personal failure.
One of the defining characteristics of the Stoics was an unwavering commitment to focusing only on what was in their direct control: their will, their actions, their effort. Epictetus, an enduring slave-turned-highly influential philosopher, furthers the concept in his discourses by positing that our goal is to bring the will in line with events. In other words, we’re to not only reserve our energy for that which is under our direct control, but to also strive to align our desires to whatever naturally occurs. We’d be hard-pressed to identify an approach to life more likely to enable contentedness.
At first reading, Epictetus' words on this topic can seem quite extreme, implying the possibility of a world in which "nothing happens contrary to our wishes and, conversely, nothing fails to happen that we want to happen.” The key here, as expressed in Sam Torode’s modern interpretation of Epictetus’ works, The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life, is to only desire what is in your power to attain, and correspondingly, to only be resistant to what is in your power to avoid.
Where uncertainty, inconsistency, and chaos abound, acute focus on—and satisfaction from—what we can control is our strength.
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