Practice like a Stoic: 52, Apply the dichotomy of control from dawn to night

The fundamental rule of life really is, well, fundamental!

The sun rising over the theater at Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, western Turkey). Epictetus was born in this city. Photo by the Author.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic.Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 298-300 of the paperback edition.]

“It is by this principle above all that you must guide yourself in training. Go out as soon as it is dawn and whomsoever you may see and hear, question yourself and answer as to an interrogator.

What did you see? A beautiful woman or boy. Apply the rule: Is this within the will’s control or beyond it? Beyond. Away with it then!

What did you see? One mourning at his child’s death. Apply the rule: Is death beyond the will, or can the will control it? Death is beyond the will’s control. Put it out of the way then!

Did a Consul meet you? Apply the rule: What is a consulship? Is it beyond the will’s control or within it? Beyond it. Take it away—the coin will not pass; reject it, you have no concern with it.

I say, if we did this and trained ourselves on this principle every day from dawn to night, we should indeed achieve something. As it is, we are caught open mouthed by every impression we meet, and only in the lecture room, if then, does our mind wake up a little. Then we go into the street and if we see a mourner we say, ‘He is undone’; if a Consul, ‘Lucky man’; if an outlaw, ‘Miserable man’; if a poor man, ‘Wretched man, he has nothing to buy food with.

These mistaken judgments we must eradicate, and concentrate our efforts on doing so. For what is weeping and lamenting? A matter of judgment. What is misfortune? Judgment. What is faction, discord, criticism, accusation, irreligion, foolishness? All these are judgments, nothing else, and judgments passed on things beyond the will, as though they were good and evil. Only let a man turn these efforts to the sphere of the will, and I guarantee that he will enjoy peace of mind, whatever his circumstances may be.” (Epictetus, Discourses III, 3.14–19)

You know, since we’ve reached the end of our excerpts from the Handbook for New Stoics, that this week’s lesson is important. Let us start by acknowledging that Epictetus sounds pretty harsh this time around. It’s almost as though Epictetus wants us to turn into Cynics (in the philosophical sense of the term)—he demands that we completely detach ourselves from externals, including our career, our sexual appetites, and even our loved ones. But Epictetus was not a Cynic (though he, as other Stoics, admired his philosophical cousins). Perhaps he was just a bit more blunt than gentler spirits like Seneca.