The Ancient Way of Why and How to Stop Caring about People’s Actions
There is only one real way to deal with people’s bad acts.
Understanding that we can’t control people and their actions, whether good or bad, whether they come from our brother, mother, friend, or foe. If we can accept this ancient piece of wisdom, we’re well on our way to putting this understanding into play. If we can’t, we’ll always fight against the currents.
The play is this: understanding what’s external and what’s not, what’s good and bad, the right action(s) to take personally, and humility.
What’s external and what’s not.
Externals are things outside our control, things we can’t change, things that are not up to us, things that may or may not happen no matter what we do, such as wealth, death, reputation, respect, attitudes, future, outcomes.
Wealth may come, or not. Death will come to all of us and we have no say when it does. Reputation, respect, attitudes are up to other people, not us. The future is unknown. Outcomes are uncertain.
Internals are things within our control, things we have power over. Things like our judgment, impulse, desire, aversion, assent, dissent, mental faculties in general.
By focusing on the right things, we’re one step closer to knowing exactly what to do when people act wrongly.
What’s indifferent.
If things outside our control are externals, it follows that we should be indifferent to them, they’re neither good or bad, since we can’t do anything to change the outcome.
If we come with the belief that wealth is good and it doesn’t happen, we’ll be upset. If we rely on reputation to make us feel confident, we’ll be disappointed when it doesn’t. Why live with such volatility, relying on externals for our freedom, peace, and happiness?
The result is that, if he wins applause, he returns home full of himself; but if he is booed, he shrivels as if the air has been let out of him and sinks down, deflated. Our case is much the same. What do we value? Externals. What do we look after? Externals. So of course, we are going to experience fear and nervousness. Faced with external circumstances that we judge to be bad, we cannot help but be frightened and apprehensive. –Epictetus
What’s good and bad.
Good and bad lie in what we can control, in our actions.
Good action is acting with virtue and not attaching ourselves to externals. Bad action is acting with vice and attaching ourselves to externals. All things under our will to control.
It follows that if we want good things to happen, we need to find it in ourselves.
Use impressions correctly.
If we want to take good actions, we need to know how to correctly use impressions by recognizing that it’s our judgments, not the situation itself that’s the problem, it’s about taking a step back before reacting to things.
It’s about exercising self-control to be able to make the right decision and take the right actions in situations.
We can either react with impulse or take a step back, exercise self-restraint, and say to every strong impression we encounter:
‘An impression is all you are, not the source of the impression.’ –Epictetus
And then,
Test and assess it with your criteria, but one primarily: ask, ‘Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?’ And if it’s not one of the things that you control, be ready with the reaction, ‘Then it’s none of my concern.’ –Epictetus
Example: Adult sibling acts like a complete a**hole towards me. I can react with, “this is bad, therefore I’m upset.” Or, I can react with, “wait a minute, this is about someone else acting in a certain way against me. Okay, I know I can’t control their actions so why get worked up about it.”
Example: upcoming presentation before senior bosses on a new project. I can react with, “I wonder how they’ll perceive me, I hope I’ll do well.” Therefore, anxiety and stress. Or, I can step back and ponder for a minute, “these are externals I can’t control no matter what I do.” I can put in the best effort and some of the bosses still won’t like the idea or me for that mattter.
Have some humility.
Even after we perceive a situation, we need to be humble and realize first, that we don’t know what we don’t know, and second, that we may be wrong in our assessment.
We can only make good decisions if we’re willing to be humble and open about it. With humility comes a relaxed mind, a beginner’s mind, a mind keen on learning. Compare with an overbearing, proud mind that misses things and makes mistakes. I prefer to be the former.
We need to have some humility, evaluate our decisions to make sure we’ve made the right one.
