Stoic

If you are going to bathe, picture to yourself the things which usually happen in the bath: some people splash the water, some push, some use abusive language, and others steal.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 4, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Rehearse the shoving and the rudeness before you go in. Then add a second aim you can still hit, which is keeping your own conduct steady. A bad room cannot take that one from you.

An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 5, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Epictetus describes a ladder: first you blame others, then yourself, then nobody. Self-criticism may be progress, but it is still only the middle rung.

With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it. If you see an attractive person, you will find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire. If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 10, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Every event arrives with a matching capacity, and the question is which one this needs. Abusive words ask for patience, pain asks for endurance. Naming the faculty gives you something to do instead of a reaction to have.

Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it." Is your child dead? It is returned.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 11, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Calling a loss a return can sound like wordplay. Epictetus wants you to remember that you held the thing on loan. He then makes the harsher point that the identity of the collector changes nothing.

Say to yourself, "This is the price paid for apathy, for tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing." When you call your servant, it is possible that he may not come; or, if he does, he may not do what you want.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 12, trans. Elizabeth Carter

He prices calm honestly rather than pretending it is free. Spilled oil is what a settled mind costs today. Practising on small losses is the whole method, because nobody learns it during a large one.

He is the master of every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever that person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever, then, would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends on others else he must necessarily be a slave.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 14, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Whoever can grant or withhold the thing you want has power over you, whatever the org chart says. I read this as a warning about my own wanting. I gave the other person that power.

Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Do this with regard to children, to a wife, to public posts, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy partner of the feasts of the gods.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 15, trans. Elizabeth Carter

The banquet rule is about timing more than restraint. Take a share when the dish reaches you, and do not lean down the table for it. Reaching early is what turns wanting into being pushed about.

Instead, distinguish within your own mind, and be prepared to say, "It's not the accident that distresses this person., because it doesn't distress another person; it is the judgment which he makes about it." As far as words go, however, don't reduce yourself to his level, and certainly do not moan with him.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 16, trans. Elizabeth Carter

He allows the sympathy out loud, including saying the sad words alongside them. What he blocks is agreeing inwardly that the event itself is the ruin. I find that split very hard to hold in the moment.

For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 17, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Someone else handles the casting; you handle the performance. Epictetus says nothing here about whether the part is fair. He asks only how well you will play it.

When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you. Try, therefore, in the first place, not to be hurried away with the appearance. For if you once gain time and respite, you will more easily command yourself.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 20, trans. Elizabeth Carter

He locates the injury in your opinion about the words. I find his advice to wait more useful than the theory. A short delay weakens the urge to answer in kind.

Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible be daily before your eyes, but chiefly death, and you win never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 21, trans. Elizabeth Carter

A daily thought of death gives petty worries and greedy plans their proper scale. Remembering to do it on an ordinary day is harder than understanding the advice.

So, in the present case, you have not been invited to such a person's entertainment, because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 25, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Epictetus treats access as a purchase, with flattery and attendance as the price. If you refused to pay it, you still hold what you kept, so the grievance does not stand.

For example, when our neighbor's boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 26, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Notice how calmly you take the identical loss when it lands on a neighbour. He asks you to lend yourself that same tone. Easy with a cup, brutal when he extends it to a dead child.

And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

Epictetus, Enchiridion 28, trans. Elizabeth Carter

The comparison is blunt. You would fight anyone who handed your body to a passer-by, yet you hand over your mind for free and feel nothing about it.

In every affair consider what precedes and follows, and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit; but not having thought of the consequences, when some of them appear you will shamefully desist.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 29, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Count the full cost first, including the dull, painful and humiliating parts, then decide. His real target is sampling. Try on every identity and you end up being nothing in particular.

Consider not what he does, but what you are to do to keep your own faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 30, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Nature gave you a father, not a good one, so your side of the relation holds whatever he does. It is a hard doctrine. He offers no exit clause for real harm, which is where I part company with him.

If anyone tells you that such a person speaks ill of you, don't make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: " He does not know my other faults, else he would not have mentioned only these." It is not necessary for you to appear often at public spectacles.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 33, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Instead of mounting a defence, concede more than the critic managed to find. It ends the drama in one line, and it only works if you genuinely hold your faults lightly.

When any person harms you, or speaks badly of you, remember that he acts or speaks from a supposition of its being his duty.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 42, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Epictetus says the person attacking you is following what seems right to him. I find that cools the anger quickly, though it does nothing about the harm already done.

Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 43, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Choose which true fact about the relationship you carry. This can help, though it can also become an excuse to ignore an injustice you ought to name.

For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?

Epictetus, Enchiridion 45, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Describe what the person did before you rate it. Most of my worst reactions come from calling an act wrong while I still lack the facts.

These reasonings are unconnected: "I am richer than you, therefore I am better"; "I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better." The connection is rather this: "I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours;" "I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours." But you, after all, are neither property nor style.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 44, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Earning more proves your holdings are larger and proves nothing else. The gap he points at is between the things attached to you and you.

The body is to everyone the measure of the possessions proper for it, just as the foot is of the shoe.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 39, trans. Elizabeth Carter

The body sets the size of what you need, as a foot sets the size of a shoe. Past that measure there is no natural place to stop, which is why upgrades never feel finished.

If, therefore, you will be negligent and slothful, and always add procrastination to procrastination, purpose to purpose, and fix day after day in which you will attend to yourself, you will insensibly continue without proficiency, and, living and dying, persevere in being one of the vulgar.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 50, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Stop choosing future dates to begin. Epictetus treats the present moment as the test and warns how easily one concession becomes a habit.

The marks of a proficient are, that he censures no one, praises no one, blames no one, accuses no one, says nothing concerning himself as being anybody, or knowing anything: when he is, in any instance, hindered or restrained, he accuses himself; and, if he is praised, he secretly laughs at the person who praises him.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 48, trans. Elizabeth Carter

This is a checklist for progress: no blaming, no boasting, no defending yourself. The hardest item is making no defence when someone censures you, since silence looks like agreement.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1, trans. George Long

He rehearses the irritation in advance, so the day cannot ambush him. The catch is he still owes those people cooperation once they turn up.

Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.8, trans. George Long

He ranks two blind spots against each other. Not knowing another person's mind rarely costs you, while not tracking your own costs you every time.

Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.14, trans. George Long

Death can only take the present, because the past and the future were never yours to hold. So the long liver and the early death lose the same amount.

A man then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.5, trans. George Long

He wants a cheerfulness that does not need topping up by other people. It bites when your steadiness runs on praise, which arrives on someone else's schedule.

Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.7, trans. George Long

The test here is almost physical. If a gain needs a closed door to survive, he says stop counting it as gain.

No longer wander at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from books which thou wast reserving for thy old age.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.14, trans. George Long

Marcus catches himself saving books for an old age that may never arrive. He tells himself to drop the plan and use what he has already read.

Do not have such an opinion of things as he has who does thee wrong, or such as he wishes thee to have, but look at them as they are in truth.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.11, trans. George Long

He rejects two framings at once, the one the attacker holds and the one the attacker wants you to hold. What is left is looking at the thing as it is.

Accordingly on every occasion a man should ask himself, Is this one of the unnecessary things?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.24, trans. George Long

The question is meant to be asked during the work, not in a weekly review. He extends it to thoughts as well, since stray thoughts breed stray tasks.

Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.49, trans. George Long

Marcus puts the good fortune in the response. The event could happen to anyone; bearing it well remains rare and difficult.

In he morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1, trans. George Long

Marcus argues with himself about staying in bed. He notices that he will exhaust himself for money or a craft, yet resists the work he thinks belongs to a human life.

Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.5, trans. George Long

The qualities he lists are dull ones like sincerity, endurance and frankness. None of them needs talent, which removes the excuse that you were not born able.

Now it is true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my affects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally and changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20, trans. George Long

He grants that a person can genuinely stop your action. The narrower claim is that your disposition can turn the block into material to work with.

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6, trans. George Long

One sentence, and no argument attached. It moves revenge from a debt they owe you into a risk you are running.

Just in the same way ought we to act all through life, and where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them of all the words by which they are exalted.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.13, trans. George Long

Marcus reduces wine to grape juice and a purple robe to dyed wool. Describe the thing without its flattering language and see whether you still want it.

If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.21, trans. George Long

He separates the sting of being corrected from the harm of staying wrong. A fair check is naming the last time you changed your mind out loud.

Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty like a soldier in the assault on a town.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.7, trans. George Long

The image is a lame soldier who cannot reach the battlements alone. Refusing the hand up protects your pride and loses the wall.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.56, trans. George Long

He asks you to count the life you have lived as already spent. What is left reads as a remainder, and a remainder is hard to postpone.

The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.61, trans. George Long

A dancer trains a set sequence; a wrestler trains to meet whatever comes. He thinks life pays the second skill, so rehearsal buys you less than readiness.

Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.36, trans. George Long

He asks you to stop totalling the future and test only the hour you are in. Dread usually sums many separate hours, and no single one of them is unbearable.

I do see; but that he is in danger, I do not see.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.49, trans. George Long

Keep the report and remove the forecast you attached to it. His example of a sick child shows how hard this is, because fear makes the forecast feel like another fact.

It is thy duty to leave another man's wrongful act there where it is.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.20, trans. George Long

The wrong belongs where it happened, so carrying it home is work you are adding yourself. It bites because rehearsing an injury feels like taking it seriously.

Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.29, trans. George Long

Do the small thing, unwatched, and count it as real work. This is aimed at the person who will only act if the fix is total and someone is looking.

Thou thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.40, trans. George Long

He rewrites the request rather than the world, praying to lose the fear instead of keeping the son. It is a colder prayer, and the only one you can act on yourself.

And if thou seest clear, go by this way content, without turning back: but if thou dost not see clear, stop and take the best advisers.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.12, trans. George Long

See clearly and go, or admit that you do not see and go and get advice. The part people skip is the instruction not to turn back once you have moved.

But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13, trans. George Long

Marcus splits the case in two and keeps only his half. Their contempt is their business, and his job is to give it nothing true to feed on.

There are four principal aberrations of the superior faculty against which thou shouldst be constantly on thy guard, and when thou hast detected them, thou shouldst wipe them out and say on each occasion thus: this thought is not necessary: this tends to destroy social union: this which thou art going to say comes not from the real thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.19, trans. George Long

Marcus asks whether the thought is needed. Most late-night rumination fails that test. Saying so plainly can be enough to let the thought go.

There is no occasion to give this notice. It will soon show itself by acts.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.15, trans. George Long

Character shows in conduct. Someone who announces his honesty has given you no proof of bad faith, but he has given you a reason to watch what he does next.

Practise thyself even in the things which thou despairest of accomplishing. For even the left hand, which is ineffectual for all other things for want of practice, holds the bridle more vigorously than the right hand; for it has been practised in this.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.6, trans. George Long

The left hand is useless everywhere except at the one job it has been drilled in. Marcus reads that as evidence about practice rather than talent, so work at what you gave up on.

Any one activity whatever it may be, when it has ceased at its proper time, suffers no evil because it has ceased.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.23, trans. George Long

Marcus applies the thought to a single act and then to a whole life. Its end does not make the time before it incomplete.

Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 8, trans. Elizabeth Carter

The shortest instruction either man gives, and the least popular. He is not asking you to approve of what happened, only to stop staking your peace on a rerun.

Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, "You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be." And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 1, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Say it to the impression itself, out loud if that helps. The move buys the half second in which you can still check whether the thing is what it claims.

If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 3, trans. Elizabeth Carter

I find this passage cold. It may buy steadiness, but Epictetus never fully admits what that distance could cost a loving relationship.

Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 9, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Epictetus grants the physical limit. An injured leg stops the leg. Whether the injury also governs your judgement remains a separate question.

If you are struck by the appearance of any promised pleasure, guard yourself against being hurried away by it; but let the affair wait your leisure, and procure yourself some delay.

Epictetus, Enchiridion 34, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Delay first, then run the comparison: the time during, against the time just after. He asks you to weigh the pleasure against the version of you that follows it.

And how is it true that you will be nobody anywhere, when you ought to be somebody in those things only which are in your own control, in which you may be of the greatest consequence?

Epictetus, Enchiridion 24, trans. Elizabeth Carter

Standing is awarded by other people, so it was never a place you could be somebody. He points you at the one arena where the rank is genuinely yours to earn.