The ancient Greek historian Herodotus said, "Of all man's miseries, the bitterest is this: to know so much, and to have control over nothing." What is Herodotus saying here? I think he is expressing the frustration that many of us feel that even if we can understand the world clearly, we just don't have the requisite power to change it. Wisdom and power don't necessarily go hand in hand.
Today, more than at any time in history, we are starting to understand the world on a macro- and micro-level. We know more about how the world works than any generation that came before us, and yet, we are still relatively powerless to change it. And on the surface, that acceptance that we don't always have the authority and power to change what happens may feel like a failure. But it's not.
The ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers (Zeno of Citium, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, among others) would tell us that we should concern ourselves only with those things that we can indeed control. Everything else? Let it be.
Epictetus said, "It is not in our control to have everything turn out exactly as we want, but it is in our control to control how we respond to what happens." Or more recently, Viktor Frankl said, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing . . . to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances." Frankl also said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves...Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant."
I have always enjoyed reading Stoic philosophy. I just have to remind myself, every once in a while, what the greatest Stoic philosophers said about managing change and changing the world. If wisdom is defined, at least according to Socrates, as knowing that you don't know everything (I think his exact quote was, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing"), then perhaps wisdom too is accepting that you can't change everything.
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