Reempowering Ourselves: Wisdom of Epictetus - Part 1

See Part 2

By Denise Breton and Christopher Largent

   

Every night the news presents us with problems too big for us to solve—fighting in the Middle East, famine in Africa, political oppression in China, homelessness and poverty here at home.  Our family structures present us with similar situations—that problem child, this parental attitude, our own character flaws, none of which we can change (or so we’re told).  Our schooling is or was the same, especially since teachers and administrators run the show.  And our vocations force us to tolerate what Albert Bernstein and Sydney Rosen call “those Neanderthals at work”—usually the person who sits next to us, the boss, or the board of directors.  We feel abused and helpless.

 

Is there a pattern here?  Like other recovery writers, Ann Wilson Schaef says that Americans are addicted to hopelessness.  We feel caught, trapped, disenfranchised, and disempowered about almost everything.  And we’re likely to take out our frustration in all the wrong places—trying to boss our spouses, our kids, our friends, and ourselves or fleeing to drugs, alcohol, perfectionism, or passivity.

 

But is all this necessary?  Is it possible that addictive systems have abused us out of our capabilities?  Have we been handed attitudes that defeat us before we start?

 

Probably the last place we’d expect to find help would be from some first-century philosopher—a guy who’s never seen a television, eaten at MacDonalds, or driven a car.  He’d never even heard of the United States.

 

But Epictetus was born a slave.  He knew something about powerlessness.  In spite of that, he became a famous philosopher.  After becoming famous, he was thrown out of Rome precisely for being a philosopher.  So he also knew something about helplessness.  Nonetheless, he reestablished himself in Nicopolis in Epirus (western Greece today), so that not only the Roman students he’d had but also Greek students could study with him.

 

Finally, we could say that he knew something about hopelessness.  He never wrote a word, and any memory of his work would come from his students’ notes.  (If you’ve ever taught and listened to students giving back what you said, you know how hopeless this could have made the old boy feel.)  But here his teachings are, after all these years.

 

Epictetus’s responses are important, because even after we’ve gotten ourselves together personally and individually, our systems—family, educational, business, and political—intimidate us.  How can we ever have an impact on them?  They seem too big, too resistant, too powerful.

 

This is where Epictetus can help.  Any guy who confronted slavery and the Roman Empire knows how a system can beat you down.  And he knows how to fight back, one step at a time.  So we’re going to reproduce (in parts—this is part 1) his most famous work, The Enchiridion (with a few of our comments thrown in).  The title of the work roughly translates as “a manual for someone assigned to do something” (a “soldier’s manual,” with the soldier’s job in this case being to live a meaningful life).

 

Epictetus begins by pointing out the obvious—but the one thing that the systems have fooled us about.  As he puts it:

 

 

Section 1

“Some things are in our power, and some are not.  In our power, for instance, are our opinions, intentions, wants, dislikes—in short, whatever is our own business.  Not in our power are such things as the kind of body we were born with, how much property we’ve inherited, what others think of us, what offices we’re appointed to—in short, whatever is someone else’s business.”

 

He’s pointing out that we need to be clear on what’s ours to do and what’s not.  This will be his “criterion” for setting up responsible, empowered lives:  knowing what things are in our power and what things are not.

 

Abusive systems reverse this.  The news, for instance, presents us with things that are “important” and yet out of our power (we should really be able to stop the famines in Africa and the fighting in the Middle East).  The message is that we have no power to impact really important things.  Anything we can change really doesn’t matter.

 

But this paralyzes us—and drives us deeper into pointless, frustrated, addictive responses.  And this is what addictive systems intend (consciously or not), because they’re control-obsessed.  If we’re fussing over the stuff we can’t change while ignoring what we really can do, we’re controllable.

 

So Epictetus wants us to know the mechanism by which we get trapped.  He continues in Section 1:

 

“The things in our power are, as far as we’re concerned, free.  They’re unrestricted by outside influences.  Things not in our power are, by contrast, restricted.  They’re dependent on others.

 

“Now, if we take the restricted things to be unrestricted—confusing what is not within our power with what is—we’ll be unhappy, finding fault with everyone.  We’ll always be trying to change what’s not in our power while neglecting what actually is in our power.

 

“On one hand, if we’re clear about what is ours and what is someone else’s—what’s in our power and what’s not—we’ll never feel hindered, and we’ll find fault with no one.  We’ll exercise our freedom to act where it’s ours to act.

 

“As a result, we’ll never do anything against our own will, because we’ll be in full use of what‘s in our power.  We’ll take responsibility for our lives and decisions.  We’ll never feel harmed by anyone else, since it’s not in their power to take away our power.  And we won’t make enemies, since we won’t blame other people for our own internal states.

 

“On the other hand, if we’re determined to change things that aren’t in our power, we have to face the fact that we won’t be able to change many of them, while those things that we may be able to change will take superhuman effort—and probably a great deal of time.  We may spend our entire lives trying to change things that are not really in our power.

 

“Of course, it’s not impossible to change things not in our power.  But we have to know what we’re in for.  If we’re determined to change things not in our power and if—as commonly happens—we also have our sights set on wealth and power, we’ll likely trip over the former trying to get the latter—and neither will bring us freedom.

 

“That is, if we want to change things that aren’t in our power and we also want wealth and power, we may find ourselves frustrated.  We may never attain the freedom we want and never exercise the freedom we have.”

 

So how do we react when we see those fifty overwhelming problems on the news?

 

“We need to say to every appearance, especially if it looks intimidating, ‘You’re just an appearance; you manifest half the picture, the outer, external half.  You’re not the reality, because you’re not the whole story, which includes the inner half as well.’

 

“How do we determine that?  We test the appearance according to our measuring stick:  Is it in our power or not?  If it’s not, there’s nothing we can do about it, and so it’s nothing to us.  Unless we intend to tackle it—taking up the challenge to change what’s not in our power—we only waste our time by worrying about it or being bothered by it.”

 

But making us feel powerless isn’t the only way abusive systems control and confound us.  In this media age, they also play with our likes and dislikes.  So Epictetus warns:

 

 

Section 2

“Keep in mind that when we want something, the wanting demands that we attain what we want—just as disliking something demands that we avoid what we dislike.  If we fail to get what we want, we’re disappointed.  If we fail to avoid what we dislike, we’re miserable.  Our desires and aversions control us and our enjoyment of life.

 

“That’s why we should watch them and not let them make us miserable.  We should seek to avoid only what we can avoid.  But if we try to avoid things such as death—the unavoidables—we’ll be unhappy.

 

“As for wanting, we should begin our quest for happiness by quieting that altogether.  Why? If we want something we can’t have, we’ll be unhappy.

 

“True, we’re not yet sure what’s in our power and what’s not; we’re not secure about what we can and can’t get.  So we should avoid the mindset of desiring things as much as possible and pursue something only when it’s absolutely necessary—and even then, proceed cautiously, moderately, even gently.”

 

Think of the rat race:  the more money we make, the more we want to buy and consume things, which means we have to work harder to pay it all off, which makes us think we should be able to buy more, which puts us in deeper debt, which means we have to work harder.

 

 

Section 3

“Of course, some things will seem pleasing, attractive, or desirable. In that case, we should remind ourselves of the actual nature of the thing.  If it’s our favorite cup, the cup has a nature that includes the possibility of being broken.  If it’s a loved one, the loved one has a mortal nature and will die.  If we understand the full nature of things, we’ll be less disturbed—less in for a shock when we see its full nature emerging.”

 

 

Section 4

“Similarly, when we undertake any action, we should keep in mind its nature as well.  If we’re going to a public bath, we know what sorts of things happen in public baths—people come in and go out, people push and shove, some people even curse and steal.  If we go with these things in mind, we’ll participate in the action more safely.

 

“We can say to ourselves, ‘I'll be going to the bath now, and I intend to do so harmoniously.’  Then if any problems arise while we’re bathing, we can remind ourselves, ‘I came not only to bathe but also to be in harmony with things.  So, if I lose my good temper, I’ll have accomplished only half of what I set out to do.  I’ll be clean, but I won’t be happy.’”

 

 

Section 5

“You see, what disturbs us are not things or actions but our views of them—our judgments and expectations.  For example, death terrifies people, but it didn’t terrify Socrates.  Why not?  Because Socrates had no notion that death was terrifying.  Death appears terrifying to people, only because they have the notion that it is terrifying.”

 

What Epictetus is referring to here is that in Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates reasons that death is either like a big reunion among friends, family and colleagues or like a sound sleep:  who doesn’t look forward to both of those?

 

“So when we feel hindered or distressed, we should keep in mind that our own views make us feel this way.  It’s the sign of (1) an uneducated mind to blame others for our own misfortunes, (2) of a partially educated mind to blame ourselves, (3) of a well educated mind to blame neither others nor ourselves.”

 

Here Epictetus offers a spectrum of “education.”  At one end is blaming others, a talent usual to men, who are masters of blaming women for whatever goes wrong.  (But those of us who are men get it honestly, because it goes back to Adam.  When God cornered him in the garden after the apple-incident, Adam tried to get out of trouble by saying, “The woman you gave me tempted me, and I ate.”  Since then all men have tried to emulate the first man who was able in one sentence to pass the buck to the nearest woman and God.)

 

At the other end is a clear understanding of how things work—and thus the ability to act accordingly.  The person who doesn’t waste time with blame has the perspective and energy to respond well—knows how to act responsibly and so take responsibility for what is truly in his or her power.

 

The same holds true for praiseworthy things:

 

 

Section 6

“When discussing merit, we need to apply our rule again:  we shouldn’t congratulate ourselves for something that’s not our own.

 

“For instance, if a horse were to say, ‘I’m a beautiful horse,’ we’d accept it (if we accept talking horses and are listening to a beautiful one).  But if we say, ‘We have a beautiful horse,’ we need to remember that the horse’s beauty is the basis of our proud comment.  What is our own in this?

 

“What is our own is only how we react to phenomena—for example, taking pride in what is not our creating.  If we react honorably—taking pride only in how we manage what’s in our power—then we really have something to be proud of.  We have a good which is ours.”

 

 

Section 7

“So, what should be our general attitude toward things such as the beautiful horse, a favorite cup, or our loved ones?

 

“Let’s consider an analogy:  if we’re on a sea voyage and the ship is anchored and we go ashore, we may pick up something as we go—a shellfish perhaps.  But we keep our eyes on the ship in case the captain calls us to return. As we go through life, we may pick up things—a beautiful horse, a favorite cup, or a loved one—and these are all good in their own ways.

 

“But if we’re called, we leave whatever needs to be left and don’t look back.  In fact, as we get older, we stay closer and closer to the ship, so that when the captain calls, we’ll be there.”

 

In this way Epictetus sums up how we maintain our freedom while interacting with things in the world.  He has similar advice for actions:

 

 

Section 8

“What about our general attitude toward actions? We can summarize this in a single sentence:  ask not that actions should occur as you wish, but wish them to occur as they do, and you’ll be at peace.”

 

 

Section 9

“After all, sickness harms the body but not the will—unless the will allows it.  A broken leg hinders our body, but it doesn’t restrict our will.  If we keep this in mind, we’ll see how seldom harmful actions actually hinder us.”

 

Of course, this guy was lame all his life, and some ancient writers say his leg was broken by his master as a “punishment.”  Either way, when it comes to the body or “a broken leg,” he knows what he’s talking about.

 

 

Section 10

“When we must respond to some action—harmful or not—we can remind ourselves what faculties we have for dealing with the action [in other words, back to what’s in our power].  If we encounter pain, then we need the faculty of endurance.  If we encounter ridicule, we need patience.  As we discipline ourselves this way, we’ll have a method for dealing with whatever happens.”

 

 

Section 11

“With actions—as with things—our original rule applies.  Even with harmful actions, we can apply it.  Thus, whatever happens, we shouldn’t say, ‘I’ve lost something,’ but rather, ‘I’ve given it back.’

 

“Has our child died?  The child has been given back.  Has our spouse died?  He or she has been given back.  Has our property been taken?  It, too, has been given back.  These things were not within our power; they were simply lent to us for a time; we borrowed them.

 

“It does us no good to complain, ‘But the person or force that took it is evil!’  The agent of the giving back is irrelevant.  While the Giver lets us have something, we take care of it—but we can’t claim it as our own.  We treat whatever we have as travelers treat an inn.  It doesn’t belong to us.”

 

 

Section 12

“For this reason, we should give up sentiments such as: ‘If I don’t take care of business, I’ll have nothing to support myself,’ or ‘If I don’t punish my son, he’ll grow up to be bad.’  We’d be better off dying of hunger than letting worries about food bother us.  We’d be better off with bad children than with unhappiness.

 

“In developing a free life, we should start with small things and build up.  Has a bit of oil been spilled or some wine stolen?  We can remind ourselves that things have prices and this is the price of a peaceful mind.  Do we need a friend’s help?  We can remind ourselves that our friend may not hear our call or that the friend may not be able to do what we want.  But whatever happens, it isn’t in our friend’s power to give us peace of mind.  That’s up to us.”

 

Contrast what he says below with the modern notion that money is freedom—that the more money we have, the more free we are. He knows a trap when he sees one:

 

 

Section 13

“As we work toward freedom, we may appear to others to be irresponsible about outward things.  So be it.  We shouldn’t wish to appear clever about externals, and even if we do appear so to others, we shouldn’t agree with them.  After all, we can’t both be in harmony with our inner nature and chase after outward things.  We can’t both be obsessed with material possessions and be free.  If we’re absorbed in one, we’ll neglect the other [our emphasis].”

 

 

Section 14

“Why?  If we’re absorbed in outward things, we’ll desire the impossible—such as wanting our children and spouses and friends to live forever and have only good things happen to them.

 

“This is wanting what’s not in our power to be in our power, wanting what’s not ours to be ours.

 

“Similarly, if we want our employees never to make a mistake, we’re being silly.  We’re wishing for perfection where it’s not appropriate.  We’ll end up making ourselves miserable by desiring the impossible.

 

“On the other hand, if we have desires that can be fulfilled—desires that will truly make us happy—this is in our power.  We should do what we actually can do.

 

“A person becomes a master over us if we let that person control what we want or do not want.  To be our own master, we should wish for what does not depend on the power of others.  Otherwise, we’re slaves, and we made ourselves that.”

 

 

Section 15

“Therefore—to use another analogy—we should act as if we’re at a banquet.  When dishes are passed to us, we take what we want and pass them on.  We don’t try to stop the passing.

 

“Does something pass by us?  We’ll either wait for it to come around again or just ignore it.  We’d look ridiculous thrashing around impatiently because some food hasn’t reached us yet or because we don’t have some tidbit.

 

“We should adopt this proper–banquet attitude toward everything—friends, children, spouses, employment, office, or wealth—and we’ll be worthy of a banquet with the gods.  In fact, if we’re not greedy over what is set before us, we’ll deserve not only to feast with the gods but also to govern with them.  By behaving this way, great men such as Diogenes and Heraclitus were called divine.”

 

 

Section 16

“The same attitudes should apply in dealing with others and with their distress. For instance, if we see someone grieving over a departed child or a misfortune in business, we shouldn’t be too carried away.  We can remind ourselves that what distresses the person is not the event but his or her view of the event.  Then we can sympathize and even grieve with the person—whatever is appropriate and necessary—without disturbing our inward being.”

 

 

Section 17

“All of this is like being in a play.  The playwright chooses whether the drama is short or long as well as our general part in it—a poor person, a cripple, a public official, a private citizen, whatever.  While the playwright has the general choice of plot and part, our job is to act our part well.”

 

 

Section 18

“This doesn’t make us fatalists, of course.  If some raven croaks, we can say, ‘This portends nothing to me or to my spouse, children, friends, or property.  In fact, all omens are good ones if I will them to be, because it’s in my power to benefit from them.’”  [It’s like selling short in a down market.]

 

 

Section 19

“How do we manage to benefit from any situation?  By applying our rule.  This works even in competitive situations; if we never compete for something that isn’t in our power, we’ll never lose.

 

“But suppose that someone has power, reputation, or position above what we have, and we’re tempted to feel that this person has a better life than ours.  We apply our rule again and do a reality-check.  What do we find?  Our good lies in what’s in our power, and we embrace that with all our being.  So we’re not jealous of the other person.

 

“In fact, we don’t wish for any high reputation, power, or position—to be president, or a general, or a senator.  We only wish to be free, and the path to freedom is ignoring what’s not in our power.”

 

 

Section 20

“But what if someone actually strikes or abuses us?  We know by now that our view is what makes abuse seem abusive; the other person may be acting from a myriad of motives that we cannot know (and he or she may not, either).  So we shouldn’t be confused or carried away by the situation.  We need to get away from the abuse, give ourselves some time to think, and then we can recover and be ourselves again.”

 

 

Section 21

“After all, whatever abuse we suffer or whatever situation we find ourselves in can be put in a larger context.  This gives us perspective.  If, for instance, we keep the possibilities of death and exile before us every day, we won’t sink to low thoughts or try to grab something that’s not worthy of our highest aims.”

 

 

Section 22

“The highest aim, of course, is wisdom, so we should always desire to be (in Plato’s sense) philosophers.  The down side of this is that there will be people who ridicule us: ‘There you go again with your high ideals. Who made you holier–than–thou?’

 

“We need to avoid appearing holier–than–thou, no doubt, but even more we need to remain dedicated to what seems best to us, as if we’d received a divine calling.  We should also remember that the very people who ridicule us will some day admire our persistence and ideals.  If we’re thrown off by their jeers, though, we’ll be doubly ridiculed.”

 

 

Section 23

“The reason is that if we let ourselves be diverted to superficialities just because the ridiculers think we can’t really be philosophers, we lose our life’s purpose.  So we should happily pursue wisdom.  The effect will be—according to our rule—the more we make ourselves philosophers (which is in our power), the more we’ll be philosophers.  We’ll live what’s in our power, and that’s what philosophy is all about.”

 

 

 

 

 

Continued ... See Part 2