If you've been reading my blog posts in the past, you know that I have been reading a lot about the philosophy of Stoicism (see for example, "To be a Stoic in today's world - part 1", "Hard winter training", or "I wish" for posts specifically covering topics on Stoicism). I subscribe to the Daily Stoic blog by Ryan Holiday, and I read passages from his book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living every day. I recently started reading several books from some of the ancient Stoic philosophers (for example, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Enchiridion by Epictetus, and Letters from a Stoic by Seneca).
Today's lesson from Stoicism included the following passage from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which he in turn copied from the ancient Greek tragedy Bellerophon, by Euripides:
"You shouldn't give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don't care at all."
Bellerophon was a hero from Greek mythology (considered "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles"). He is best known for killing the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. He also captured the winged horse, Pegasus and earned the disfavor of the gods after he tried to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus. It is this latter feat that is the subject of Euripides' lost tragedy, Bellerophon.
Enough of the history lesson, let's get back to Stoicism. One of the fundamental tenets of Stoic philosophy is the concept of control. Specifically, you should always (and only) focus on what is inside your control, not on what is outside your control. Epictetus famously stated, "Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions."
We are in control of our actions and our response to events, and not to the events or circumstances themselves. Have you ever sat in an airport waiting for a flight that has been delayed? It seems to be a fairly common occurrence these days. The last time my wife and I were on vacation at the beach (which seems like ages ago), there was a large storm moving slowly across the southeastern portion of the United States. Our flight back home kept getting delayed - the inbound aircraft was apparently waiting on the tarmac in Atlanta. We waited for several hours in the airport. Finally, late in the evening, we heard from the gate attendant that the inbound aircraft was landing shortly and that we would be boarding soon. As we waited in line to board, we watched as the flight crew exited the plane and slowly walked away from the gate. The gate attendant then announced that the flight crew had "timed out" and that the flight was going to be re-scheduled for the morning. Ugh!
My wife and I watched as a number of passengers on our flight became quite unruly. One woman started yelling at the gate attendant. Admittedly, both the airline and the gate attendant could have handled the situation better. However, regardless of how much yelling the woman did, she was still not going to fly out that night.
Marcus Aurelius would argue that the woman made the mistake of giving her circumstances the power to rouse her anger. As Ryan Holiday writes, "Circumstances do not change as a result of how angry you get at them." Epictetus tells us that we have the power to choose how we respond to circumstances. We don't have any power over how those circumstances arise or play out. We can choose to be angry - but why? Will that make the situation any different? Probably not.
We should always focus on what we can control and what we can change. If something is out of our control (or if we can't change it), the Stoics tell us that we shouldn't waste any time or energy on it. It's not easy to do, but there is no point in losing your cool over something that you have absolutely no control over.
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