Epictetus, The Handbook 68: Within My Power

On every occasion we must have these thoughts at hand,

'Lead me, O Zeus, and lead me, Destiny,

Whither ordained is by your decree.

I'll follow, doubting not, or if with will

Recreant I falter, I shall follow still.'

-Cleanthes of Assos

'Who rightly with necessity complies

In things divine we count him skilled and wise.'

-Euripides, Fragment 965

'Well, Crito, if this be the gods’ will, so be it.'

-Plato, Crito, 43d

'Anytus and Meletus have power to put me to death, but not to harm me.'

-Plato, Apology, 30c

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 53 (tr Matheson)

The Handbook ends with these four quotations, and I suggest that we will only understand them, and why Epictetus chose them, if we apply the overall lesson of the entire text, a reflection upon the things in our power.

Appeals to the gods and to fate would often leave me cold, perhaps because they placed all things in forces I could not perceive, or perhaps because they made me look irrelevant in the order of all things. Indeed, it often seemed that being subsumed into an impersonal whole, left powerless and without hope, was the root of so many of my troubles. Whenever things didn't go the way I wanted, I would far too readily wallow in despair.

There seemed to only be two options, to conquer the world or to be conquered by the world. Either it would have to be all about me, or I would have to be completely useless and disposable. The selfishness of the former disgusted me, and the pain of the latter terrified me.

The go-getters and achievers told me I needed to shape all other things to my will, and to never look back. This was sadly the attitude of the lost love of my life.

Fatalists, often of a certain religious sort, told me I just needed to blindly surrender myself to God, and to take my hands off the wheel. This was sadly the attitude of my lost friends during the Wilderness Years.

As is so often the case, I did not see the mean between the extremes. Stoicism helped me to understand that my own choices and actions did not exist apart from the order of all things, but rather existed within that order.

I began to see that the plan of Nature, of Providence, of God, in whatever way you wish to conceive it, was not something distant or invisible. I could see it right in front of me each and every day, in the simple fact that all things act for purpose, and that all situations and events have immediate meaning, if only we so choose to recognize it.

I began to see that my own existence was hardly insignificant, and no more or less important than anything else on the face of this Earth. Yet I only grasped this when I saw all the parts in harmony with the whole, instead of opposing the parts and the whole. I did not need to be forced, kicking and screaming, into the fullness of all things as they were. I could instead give my free and joyful “yes” to the world, and then also agree to assist in that wonderful beauty.

Destiny did not exclude me. Destiny had always been inviting me to share myself through my own choice. Providence was never a static thing, but a constant unfolding, and each of us has a part that is asked of us.

Zeus, for Cleanthes the personification of Providence, never trampled on my freedom. Instead, he asked me to share in his power. I could learn to work with things, and not against them, while still being my own master. In my own daily thinking, this became something akin to a Tao of Stoicism.

If and when, especially when, I fail, out of my selfishness or cowardice, new pathways always reveal themselves. These are not written in the distant heavens, but to be found in the most immediate and humble ways. When I am too angry, Nature provides me direct means to find peace. When I feel hate, Nature offers me myriad ways to love. When I abandon hope, Nature always throws me a lifeline.

Even when I struggle and squirm, and I continue to resist, my very resistance becomes, by wonderful means, an opportunity for the greater good. The greater good need never exclude the lower, but it will always find a way to include it.

When Socrates tells us that we must accept the will of the gods, he is not advocating defeatism. What seems to some such a great weakness is, in fact, a much greater strength. I need only return to the opening chapter of The Handbook. It is when I can distinguish between what is rightly within my power, and what is rightly outside of it, that I will find my proper place.

The world will unfold as it will unfold. I do not always immediately know why it does so, but my reason can determine that it is always for a purpose. Nature does not act in vain. It isn’t my place to be a ruler of Nature, but to be a participant in Nature.

This is exactly why Socrates understood that Anytus and Meletus could never harm him, even if they could kill him. I must be willing to surrender anything and everything that is beyond my power, but I can never lose that one piece, that essential piece, that is exclusively mine. You may choose to be a bad man, but you will never force me to be a bad man. Nature is invincible, and I am also invincible, whenever I freely share in Nature. That is within my power. 

Written in 4/1998