Aditya Ajit
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

Tuesday

Today’s focus is Control. Not in the common sense of control, where we have the ability to moderate portions or to restrain oneself; that is a significant aspect of stoicism yet not the matter at hand. This type of control is where we assess situations or outcomes and judge whether or not they were in our control or not. If they were/are, and they are in our power and of our own doing, then we should pay utmost importance to them. These things are the key, according to Stoicism, to living a successful life, by freeing ourselves from unnecessary passions and dangerous emotions. According to Epictetus, things under our ‘control’ is everything that we have power over, such as opinion, desire and motivation. Most things that we encounter in life are out of our control, sometimes even not in our scope, yet we find a way to worry, stress and prioritise them for no real reason. For example, if someone is worrying about losing their wealth or fame, if someone is stressing about their wellbeing because they have fallen sick, or even if someone is undermining their own ethics and reasoning because a close family member passed away, then they are, in Stoic reality, focusing on irrelevant matters. That is because all of those things are almost entirely out of anyone’s control. While we may desire and prefer those things to happen or not, our opinions have no power over the outcome of certain situations, and we are thus wasting time fostering destructive feelings and emotions.

Another issue with most people I find stressing over something in their day is that they expected it to pan out perfectly. I used to be a culprit of this exact dilemma when I was much younger, but since then (for the better or worse) I have developed more pessimistic qualities in my outlook for every day by understanding what my capabilities are. There is simply no purpose to worrying about anything that was not entirely in your power, as you were worrying about something that you never really had power over in the first place. Thus, you could expect anything to be the result of the situation, and you should prepare yourself with ‘reservations’ for the worst. For example, if you understand that no matter how much power or control you have over something occurring, things will only play out perfectly if nothing prevents it. If not, set your expectations low so that you don’t get surprised – because as bad as it sounds, this means that you won’t develop feelings of disappointment and frustration for no actual reason.

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    Aditya Ajit

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