Epictetus, Discourses 1.3.2

Why, if Caesar adopts you, your arrogance will be past all bearing; but if you realize that you are a son of Zeus, will you feel no elation? 

 

We ought to be proud, but we are not; as there are these two elements mingled in our birth, the body which we share with the animals, and the reason and mind which we share with the gods, men in general decline upon that wretched and dead kinship with the beasts, and but few will claim that which is divine and blessed.

 

However much I might make grand claims to the contrary, the things to which I commit the greatest amount of my time and effort will also be the things that I care for the most. Words can sadly be cheapened, but actions will tend to reveal the true priorities. 

 

And so what does it say about me when I spend my entire day running about after trinkets and gold star stickers? To be given a raise or to win the approval of the boss is seen as a cause for great celebration, and I will be quite happy to mention it to anyone who will listen. 

 

I get all puffed up about looking like a bigger man, and yet I don’t think it all that praiseworthy to become a better man? Then changes need to be made. 

 

If I work hard to be taken into upper management, I will be applauded. Yet if I work hard to be a child of God, I will be ridiculed. The only solution is to stop listening to all of the wrong people. 

 

The struggle is nothing new. Socrates long ago warned us about confusing the greater and the lesser, about neglecting the divine within us at the expense of the bestial within us. 

 

I am prone to losing my bearings, to putting my gut where my head should be, and my head where my gut should be. The heart in the middle will follow whatever has risen to the top. This is why I so readily fawn over any flashy Caesar selling riches and fame, instead of nurturing my most sacred bond with what is Absolute. 

 

The Stoics sought to avoid any tensions of dualism in their philosophy, of dividing the world into things that were good and things that were evil, and they recognized that all aspects of being shared in a common Nature. 

 

Yet within that Nature is an inherent order of the whole, and what is right or wrong depends on the proper harmony of the parts. It is not bad for man to have a body, but it is certainly bad for him to be ruled merely by the wants of the body. 

 

To recognize the divine spark within me, a sliver of the power to know and to love, is to recognize the very property that makes me distinctly human. To offer it the highest place of honor in my life is to work with Providence instead of against it. 

Written in 9/2000