What disturbs men’s minds is not events
but their judgments on events. For instance, death is nothing dreadful, or else
Socrates would have thought it so. No, the only dreadful thing about it is
men’s judgment that it is dreadful.
And so when we are hindered, or
disturbed, or distressed, let us never lay the blame on others, but on
ourselves, that is on our own judgments.
To accuse others for one’s own
misfortunes is a sign of want of education; to accuse oneself shows that one’s
education has begun; to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s
education is complete.
—Epictetus,
The Handbook, Chapter 5 (tr Matheson)
This has
long been one of my favorite Stoic passages, and over the years I have pretty
much memorized it. It has been quite a comfort when things don’t seem to be
going “my way”, because it reminds me exactly what my way should be. It not
only sums up so much of Stoic wisdom, but also does so in quite a radical manner.
Things
will only be as good or bad as I choose to make them. I am the only cause for
my happiness or misery, and I should never blame another. I need not even blame
myself anymore once I am living with full responsibility for my own actions.
Such
claims always raise eyebrows. We are all quite familiar with the practice of
casting blame on others, perhaps because it seems easier to live that way. I
find it actually to be a much harder way to live, because I am constantly
enslaved by my circumstances.
We might
also seek to accuse others out of sense of justice, out of righting the wrongs
of our fellows. The Stoic, however, will point out that I can never right
another’s wrongs, because that is only within his power. I can only right my
own wrongs.
To take
a Stoic Turn is to reverse the accustomed order of accountability, and it can
be the most liberating of life’s experiences. The only thing getting me down is
me, simply because only I can be in control of myself.
I had an
experience both frustrating and humorous a while back, when a relative accused
my young son of stealing his cell phone. I struggled with myself to tolerate
almost an entire day of recriminations and criticisms of how poorly I was
raising my child, until his wife discovered it under the pillow in their bed. After
an awkward silence, he told me that none of this would have happened if I had
done more to help him find it.
Now here
I had to resist my feelings quite strongly, and to avoid telling him that I
would be sure to check under his wife’s pillow the next time I was in her bed.
I most certainly felt anger, but I needed to remember that his anger was his
own, and mine was mine.
I spent
many years going back and forth between blaming another and blaming myself for
the most painful event of my life. It took me far too long to learn that the
loss required no blame at all, not even regret. I certainly should not blame
someone else for the state of my life, because making something of it is my
job. And once I can own my own mistakes, I can transform those mistakes into
right action.
If I
genuinely and honestly fix a wrong, not by hiding it away or by making excuses,
I’ve been completely responsible for myself. I don’t even need to accuse myself
once I have done that. The stain has been washed out, because I’ve finally done
my own laundry.
Written in 10/2011
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