Stoic Reflections: Finding Balance, Acceptance & Life Cycle
Musings from Epictetus’ Discourses — Week 12
March 20th, 2024
It is difficult, to be sure, to unite and combine these two states of mind, the vigilance of one who feels attracted by outside objects, and the composure of one who feels indifferent to them; but all the same it is not impossible. For otherwise it would be impossible for us to be happy.
How do you find the balance between wanting more and knowing when you have enough?
It seems natural for us to desire more than what we have but at the same time, those who have what we want will often tell us that those things won’t make us feel fulfilled.
Maybe the balance lies in how we approach our desires. Viewing desires as a simple form of progression rather than attaching our self-worth and happiness to them. The balance lies in what we consider will make us happy and fulfilled. If we apply that to the right thing (things in our control) then we can pursue external goals and desires without attaching ourselves to them.
Those external desires could simply be arbitrary goals. In terms of health, your weight or the pounds on a bar are just markers for your goals. Similarly, you can have external goals related to your desires but still have peace of mind about not possibly attaining them.
March 23rd, 2024
What are you? A human being. Now, if you consider yourself in isolation, it is natural for you to live to an advanced age, to be rich, and to enjoy good health; but if you consider yourself as a human being and as part of some whole, it may be in the interest of the whole that you should now fall ill, now embark on a voyage and be exposed to danger, now suffer poverty, and perhaps even die before your time. Why do you resent this, then? Don’t you know that in isolation a foot is no longer a foot, and that you likewise will no longer be a human being? What, then, is a human being?
The acceptance of good and the bad.
Life is incomplete without both. But as humans, we all want the good only. We want to be happy, successful, and fulfilled. However, in order to achieve these things, we have to be exposed to unhappiness, failure, and frustration. We also have to accept that happiness, success and fulfillment are temporary. Soon enough time will change and we will have to deal with the opposite side of the coin. That is part of the human experience.
Your life will always fluctuate. Full of peaks and valleys.
The best you can do is stay centred. Never allow the highs or the lows to trick you into believing that this will be life. Things will always change for the better or for worse.
March 24th, 2024
It is thus your role to step forward and say what you ought, and to deal with these things as they turn out.
Life is about taking action and moving forward. However, we often get bogged down by things that aren’t in our control and worry about them, which causes us to overthink and procrastinate, leading to no progress.
But once we go through the practice of what is in our control and what isn’t, our plan of action becomes clear because there are fewer hurdles in front.
After action comes acceptance. Whether the consequences of your actions were what you wanted or if they ended up being vastly different, you have to accept it regardless and proceed to act once more.
The repetition of this cycle is part of life.
Originally published at http://learnedlivingorg.wordpress.com on March 24, 2024.