“For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable.”
- Epictetus, Discourses 2.1.12
January 11, 2021 7:07 AM
Our ideas of tranquility often involve some serene landscape, lush with green and a gentle white noise in the background. The Stoics were the opposite of this picture. Instead, the Stoics are represented by the worker on the jackhammer, the busy office assistant juggling three things at once, the cashier with four customers deep in line… all equally at peace.
Conclusion
Escaping our everyday lives with pleasures can be rationalized easily in our minds. Masking our stress and disruptive problems with instant gratification works for a short time, but reality eventually catches up to us. Epictetus is reminding us that our peace and strength is not determined by the environment, but the result of our reasoned choices.