Enchiridion sections

Some things we can control, some we can’t. We can control our attitudes, opinions, goals and desires – choices of our own. We can’t control health, wealth, fame or power – things we can’t have by choosing them.

What we can control naturally is not governed, restricted or constrained by others; what we can’t control is naturally governed, restricted and constrained by others. If you mistake what’s constrained for what’s free, and what others control for what you control, you’re in for it: you won’t get your way, you’ll be unhappy, you’ll be disturbed, and you’ll be spewing blame in every direction. But if you take for your own only what really is your own, and what’s not up to you as exactly that, then you’ve got it made: no one will ever make you do what you don’t want to, no one will ever thwart you, you won’t find fault with anyone, you’ll have no enemies and you’ll never come to harm.

With this much to aim for, you’d better believe it won’t be attained without effort. There’ll be things you’ll have to give up for good, and others to put on the shelf. For instance, if you want what we’re talking about, and you still want power and money too, then you probably won’t get them because you’ve compromised your pursuit of them with this philosophy stuff, and you definitely won’t get the things we’re discussing here that are the sole basis for freedom and happiness. Practice a new attitude toward events that seem unpleasant, telling yourself that the way they seem isn’t the way they have to be for you. Analyze each event according to the rules you’re learning, especially this: Is it something you can control or not? If not, be ready to say it’s not your concern.

If you think you’ve got to have something, and you don’t get it, you’re miserable. If you think you’ve got to avoid something, and you wind up in the middle of it anyway, you’re miserable. That’s what happens, sooner or later, when you want something or want to avoid something. If the only things you try to avoid are things that really are under your own control, then you’ll never have to take what you wanted to avoid. But if you try to avoid illness or poverty or death, you’re bound to be miserable, sooner or later. So stop trying to avoid things you have no power to keep out of your life. Avoid instead the undesirable attitudes that are within your power to shun.

For now, put all desires on the shelf. If you pursue what you can’t control, you’ll be disappointed. And you don’t yet understand the things you can control that will be appropriate for you to pursue later.

As daily life requires simple selections and refusals of you, perform these gently and moderately, not desperately; go easy. - Epictetus

With regard to everything that you enjoy, find useful, or love, keep their nature in mind, starting with the smallest things. If you have a favorite coffee cup, remember that it’s a cup; then if it’s broken, you can stand it. When you hug your child or your spouse, remember that it’s a mortal human being you’re hugging; then if that person dies, you can stand it.

GPT Translation

Remember to consider the true nature of everything entertaining, useful, or beloved, starting from the smallest things: if you are fond of a pot, remember that it is only 'a pot' that you are fond of. For if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child or your wife, remember that you are kissing a human: if they die, you will not be disturbed.

When you’re going to do something, keep the full nature of the activity in mind. If you’re going to a show, picture the way people behave at the theater – pushing, cutting in on lines, arriving late, talking. You’ll be better off if you say to yourself, “I’m going to see this show and I’m going to keep my attitudes under control.” And so with everything you do. Then if anything gets in the way of your enjoyment of the show, for example, you can say: “My goal wasn’t just to see this show, but to keep my attitudes under control, and I won’t keep them that way if I get irritated at what happens.”

GPT Translation

When you are about to engage in some task, remind yourself of what the task is. If you are going to the bath, picture to yourself the things that happen in the bath: people splashing water, people jostling, people insulting each other, people stealing. And thus you will undertake the task more safely if you say to yourself, ‘I want to bathe and keep my own choice in accordance with nature.’ And do similarly for every task. For thus, if some hindrance arises in bathing, it will be readily available for you because ‘I wanted not only to bathe, but also to keep my own choice in accordance with nature: I will not maintain this if I am upset by the things that happen.

Related

Events don’t disturb us; it’s the attitudes we take toward events that disturb us. For example, death isn’t terrible, or it would have seemed that way to Socrates; it’s the idea that death is terrible that’s terrible.

So when we’re hindered or disturbed or saddened, let’s not blame others but rather our own opinions.

It’s the ignorant person who blames others for her or his troubles, the person with a little training who blames only herself or himself, and the well-instructed person who blames no one.

GPT Translation

It is not events that disturb people, but their judgements about them. For example, death is nothing fearful (otherwise it would have appeared so to Socrates), but the judgement about death being fearful is what is fearful.

So, when we are hindered, disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame others but ourselves, that is, our own judgements.

It is the mark of an uneducated person to blame others for one's own misfortunes; of a partially educated person to blame oneself; and of a fully educated person neither to blame another nor oneself.

Some thoughts on this

It's our misconception that we can judge whether something is good or bad that causes us to have such opinions.

If you want to get better, give up thinking like this: “If I don’t take care of business, I won’t make a living.” “If I don’t reprimand my employee, he’ll be useless.” Because it’s better to starve while free from grief and fear than to live with abundance but be disturbed. Better your employee should be bad than you should be unhappy.

Start small. There’s minor breakage, or petty theft of paper clips? Say to yourself: “This is the price of not being disturbed, the price of tranquillity.” There’s no free lunch. So when you summon your subordinate, remember that he may not come, and if he does he still may not do what you want. But he’s not so powerful that your peace of mind depends on him.

disturbed=troubled mind

Translated by GPT from Greek:

If you want to improve, leave such thoughts behind. 'If I neglect my duties, I will not have sustenance:' 'If I do not punish my child, he will be wicked.' It is better to die from hunger without grief and fear than to live in abundance and be disturbed. It is better for the child to be bad than for you to be miserable.

[2] Start therefore with the small things. The oil spills, the wine is stolen; remind yourself that 'this is the price of peace of mind, this is the price of tranquility:' nothing extra comes from this. But when you call your child, keep in mind that he may not obey, and even if he does obey, he might not do what you want: but it is not good for him to be so, that you should not be disturbed because of it.

Related

If you want to get better, let yourself seem foolish and uncaring about externals. Don’t try to seem knowledgeable. If anyone thinks you’re important, you’re doing it wrong.

It’s difficult to keep your will on track and simultaneously go after external things. Take care of one and you’ll surely neglect the other.

GPT translation

"If you wish to make progress [in moral and philosophical development, specifically in achieving personal virtue and wisdom], endure to appear foolish and ignorant about external things, and do not wish to seem knowledgeable: and if it appears to some that you are someone, distrust yourself.

Know that it is not easy to maintain your own choice according to nature and attend to external things as well; neglecting one is necessarily linked to caring for the other."

It's foolish to want your children, your wife, and your friends to live no matter what, because you're wanting things that aren't up to you to be up to you, and things that aren't yours to be yours. By the same token, it's stupid to want your slave not to do wrong, because that's wanting badness not to be badness but something else. But if you want to get what you desire, that's in your power. So confine your efforts to what's in your power;

An individual's master is the person who has the power of procuring for him or denying to him what he wants or doesn't want. So anyone who wants to be free must neither want nor try to avoid anything that's up to others. Otherwise, he's bound to be unfree.

GPT Translation

If you wish for your children, your wife, and your friends to always live, you are foolish: for you wish to control things that are not within your control and to possess what belongs to others. Similarly, if you wish that your child does not make mistakes, you are misguided: for you are expecting perfection where it is natural to err. However, if you wish to not fail in your desires, that is possible. Therefore, practice what is achievable.

The master of each person is the one who has the power over what he wishes or does not wish to happen or to be taken away. Thus, anyone who wishes to be free should neither desire nor avoid anything that depends on others: if not, he is necessarily a slave."

Notes

Its not people who have inherent value, its the relationship that have value.

If your are anxious about someone leaving or dying then your relationship will be affected by it.

You are a slave to anything that you think has value.

Other people inform the roles that we take. You cannot be a teacher without students.

In any project, consider the entire process and the steps it requires before you begin it. Otherwise you’ll start off eagerly enough, but quit when it’s time for the gritty work.

Say you want to win a gold medal at the Olympics. That’s certainly a fine ambition. But first review the full sequence of events, and then go for it if you still want to. There’s tremendous discipline required, a careful diet, rigorous training on a schedule, regardless of weather; your large or small vices must be given up; you have to turn yourself over to your coach as a sick man would to his doctor. And this is a matter of years, not hours or days. Then in each stage of competition you may sustain painful injuries, eat a lot of dust, take verbal abuse – and still lose. Taken all that into account? If you have, and you still want to go for the gold, go for it. Otherwise, you’ll act like a child who plays at being a detective one minute, an astronaut or a musician the next, depending on what he’s seen on television recently. The same way you’re a businessman one day, an artist the next, maybe a philosopher today – but absolutely nothing with your whole being. You ape the motions of whatever you’ve seen, and one thing after another catches your fancy. You’ve never begun anything with careful deliberation, after carefully reviewing the entire process involved, but rather you’ve started rashly, with what you thought was a cool determination.

Similarly, some have been exposed to philosophy, and want to be philosophers too – instant philosophers. Friend, consider the entire process and what it requires, and then decide whether you’re up to it. If you wanted to enter the pentathlon, you would have to consider the strength of your limbs and your wind; different persons are cut out for different things. Do you think you can go on acting the way you have, and be a philosopher? Do you think you can eat and drink the way you have, and be angry and quick to take offense? You’ll have to forego your ease, work hard, leave people behind, be despised by menials, be laughed at, and get crumbs at best when it comes to recognition and position – in all affairs. Consider these costs, and see if you’re willing to pay them to gain peace, freedom and tranquillity. If you’re not willing, stay away from philosophy.

Don’t be like a child who’s a philosopher one minute, then a movie star, then a bureaucrat. That’s inconsistent. You’ve got to be one person, good or bad. You take care of your own will and attitudes, or you take care of external things. You apply yourself to what’s inside you, or to things outside. You’re a philosopher, or you’re not.

Diagram

How long will you wait before you consider yourself capable of the best, and of living in accord with reason? You’ve been through the reasoning and accepted the principles. What great master are you waiting for, so that you can stall your improvement until his arrival? You’re no longer a child, but an adult. If you’re negligent and lazy, keep delaying and making a collection of one good intention after another, naming day after day on which you’ll start to take care of yourself, you’ll just go on without getting better, and you’ll live and die miserable.

Right now, consider yourself worthy of living like a grownup, and someone who’s getting better. Let what seems right to you be an iron law. And if anything comes your way that seems like work, or seems tempting or glorious or disgraceful, remember that the struggle is on already, that the Olympics have begun and can’t be delayed, that what you do today – this minute – will determine whether progress is made or lost. Socrates became perfect this way, making everything an opportunity for his improvement, following only reason. Though you’re not yet a Socrates, you should live as though you intend to become a Socrates.