Epictetus, The Handbook 31: Living by Half Measures

In everything you do consider what comes first and what follows, and so approach it. Otherwise you will come to it with a good heart at first because you have not reflected on any of the consequences, and afterwards, when difficulties have appeared, you will desist to your shame.

Do you wish to win at Olympia? So do I, by the gods, for it is a fine thing. But consider the first steps to it, and the consequences, and so lay your hand to the work.

You must submit to discipline, eat to order, touch no sweets, train under compulsion, at a fixed hour, in heat and cold, drink no cold water, nor wine, except by order; you must hand yourself over completely to your trainer as you would to a physician, and then when the contest comes you must risk getting hacked, and sometimes dislocate your hand, twist your ankle, swallow plenty of sand, sometimes get a flogging, and with all this suffer defeat.

When you have considered all this well, then enter on the athlete's course, if you still wish it. If you act without thought you will be behaving like children, who one day play at wrestlers, another day at gladiators, now sound the trumpet, and next strut the stage.

Like them you will be now an athlete, now a gladiator, then orator, then philosopher, but nothing with all your soul. Like an ape, you imitate every sight you see, and one thing after another takes your fancy. When you undertake a thing you do it casually and halfheartedly, instead of considering it and looking at it all round.

In the same way some people, when they see a philosopher and hear a man speaking like Euphrates (and indeed who can speak as he can?), wish to be philosophers themselves. . .

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 29 (tr Matheson)

I must always look at myself with complete honesty. As soon as I hide behind the facade, and pretend I am something that I am not, I have not only deceived others, but I have more importantly deceived myself.

Who am I? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What should I commit my life to? Am I willing to pay the price for that commitment?

Whims are not commitments. I assure you, that any real commitment will hurt, not because it costs me money, or time, or even effort, but because it costs me my whole being. However terrible that may sound, the price of a finite struggle is well worth an infinite reward.

This isn’t at all about just working hard, but rather about learning to work hard for all the right things. Many people will tell us how hard they have worked, but they neglect to tell us why it was worth working for.

Yet we are so often drawn to so many different things, like a cat in a roomful of flies. I may see something appealing, and I run after it. I see another thing that appeals to me, and I run after that. These are works of fancy, and not commitments. We are drawn by the sparkle, and then discouraged by the labor.

I think of all the projects I have begun, all the efforts I have embarked upon, and then left completely unfinished. There was nothing to blame but my own sloth, and my sloth came from my flightiness. I thought I wanted something, but I didn’t want to follow through.

I think that the way we acquire and dispose of our friends and lovers fits this pattern. We try people out, and when they no longer fit our immediate satisfaction, we dispose of them. We then try another, and another, like some perverse test drive, and care nothing for the consequences of our actions. We leave rubble behind us, and then claim a sick sort of victory.

Epictetus shouldn’t even have to tell us this, but there are really only two questions here: What is worth living for? How much am I willing to give for it?

So it is with philosophy. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see people tell me they are “philosophers” because they have read a book or two, or taken a course or two. I have committed my life to philosophy for over twenty years, and I am still horrible at it. I suspect that the more things people claim competence in, the less they are competent in anything at all.

In my teenage years, one of my favorite geek movies was The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. The titular hero was a top neurosurgeon, particle physicist, race car driver, rock star, and comic book hero. This is just fine in fantasy, but a millstone in real life. The jack-of-all-trades is the master of none.

Epictetus isn’t just speaking about our choice of trade or vocation, but about the very path of our lives. If anything is even worth a hill of beans, it won’t be satisfied by half measures. 

Written in 7/2007