Time for Rereading Epictetus

Although my blog is basically a cheery little record of all my happy activities and accomplishments as a children's book writer, philosophy professor, and occasional salvager of ruined houses, rest assured that my personal life has many hideous and horrid challenges in it. Sometimes I wish that just one week would go by without some staggering blow.

So this is why I continue to love my most beloved of all philosophers, Epictetus. Epictetus erects his philosophy on the simplest possible scaffolding: he draws just one fundamental distinction, between things that are in our power (things that are up to us) and things that are not in our power (things that are not up to us). From this all the rest follows with absolute obviousness. For once you grasp the distinction, which category of things should you worry about? Things that are in your power, or things that are not? Um, things that ARE in your power? Yes! So what should you NOT be focusing on? Um, everything else? Yes! And this includes: the weather, your reputation, your worldly fortunes, and most important for our purposes here: other people's actions.

YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO. THEIR ACTIONS ARE NOT IN YOUR POWER. THEIR ACTIONS ARE NOT UP TO YOU.

99 percent of my staggering blows concern other people's actions. That is to say, things that I can do nothing about. NOTHING AT ALL. So why should I be staggering? And lamenting? And groaning? Why not calmly accept that other people will act as they are going to act, and accept that all things happen as they do?

On some days this is harder than on other days. It's also easier, I've found, with medication. But the only alternative is to beat your head bloody against what cannot be changed.

So instead I'll finish this blog post, fix myself a nice little lunch, put on my bathing suit, and go sit awhile by the pool.

That IS in my power. That IS up to me.