Epictetus, The Handbook 20: Invincible

You can be invincible, if you never enter on a contest where victory is not in your power. Beware then that when you see a man raised to honor or great power or high repute you do not let your impression carry you away.

For if the reality of good lies in what is in our power, there is no room for envy or jealousy. And you will not wish to be praetor, or prefect or consul, but to be free; and there is but one way to freedom—to despise what is not in our power.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 19 (tr Matheson)

We assume we can acquire greater freedom by having more, when freedom is in fact found by having less. We think we become more secure by building ourselves up in the world, when security is in fact rooted in not caring for our place in the world. Freedom and security are never granted from the outside, but proceed from the inside.

I have become increasingly aware that most every single obstacle I face arises from allowing myself to be carried away by impressions. To succumb to anger, despair, jealously, fear, or lust is really nothing more than acting through a passion loosed from an understanding of what is good for me.

I have immediately allowed myself to be defeated once I permit this to happen, and getting out of such a pattern is much harder than falling into it. The trick to being invincible is learning to not even take the bait.

If I can understand what I should rightly desire, and therefore also what I should not desire, I will hardly be jealous or resentful when I do not receive the things I don’t even need. I can approach this from the inside out, by recalling what I truly require to be happy, or from the outside in, by recalling why the trinkets I crave won’t fill those requirements.

That a craving for externals, upon things outside of our own power, breeds jealousy is a sure sign that we are enslaving ourselves. I need only consider how the drive for money, power, or pleasure brings out the worst in all of us. But you will hardly see truly good men, and not the seekers of fame and reputation, squabble and bicker over their virtue and character. Resentment comes only when we define ourselves by the things that aren’t really ours to begin with.

If I am attracted to a person, to a position, or to a thing, I need to simply ask myself what good will come from my drive to possess them, or even if I can truly possess them at all? We want to get that girl, score that job, or own that car, but none of them will make me any better, or any happier. I am defined by my own actions, not by how I am acted upon.

I have repeatedly seen cigarette smokers, for example, driving themselves crazy because a long meeting is keeping them from their nicotine fix. The non-smokers simply can’t understand, because this isn’t something that they crave.

So it is with many things in life. The man enslaved to his circumstances will struggle to get a hold of what he cannot truly have, while the virtuous man simply walks away from such temptations. This isn’t because he is superhuman, or unfeeling, or gifted with a will of steel, but simply because he understands that he doesn’t need to want what he doesn’t already have.

He is invincible because he is free, and he is free because he seeks to possess only himself.

Written in 6/1997

Image: A Sea Harrier takes off from HMS Invincible. I can never resist an image of my favorite warplane or my favorite warship.