Epictetus, Discourses 1.4.3

“That man”, he says, “can already read Chrysippus by himself.”

 

Bravo, by the gods, you make progress, fellow. Progress indeed! 

 

Why do you mock him? Why do you draw him away from the sense of his own shortcomings? Will you not show him what virtue really means, that he may learn where to seek for progress?

 

Miserable man, there is only one place to seek it—where your work lies. 

 

Where does it lie? It lies in the region of will; that you may not fail to get what you will to get, nor fall into what you will to avoid; it lies in avoiding error in the region of impulse, impulse to act and impulse not to act: it lies in assent and the withholding of assent, that in these you may never be deceived.

 

But the first department I have named comes first and is most necessary. If you merely tremble and mourn and seek to escape misfortune, progress is of course impossible.

 

I always found it odd that the intellectual aesthetes would put me down for trying to be more like they were; was I not trying hard enough? 

 

No, that wasn’t it at all; perhaps they were so full of their own superiority that they could not conceive of anyone else striving to be as brilliant as they were? 

 

Learn your Chrysippus? That’s a fine thing, so don’t knock it. Learn to live with a conscience? Now that’s the absolute thing, and there’s no decent living without it.

 

The world is full of snobbery and hypocrisy, but I am learning to look past it, learning to recognize the players and the frauds, and learning to work on myself before I worry about anyone else. 

 

They have their own place, intended by Providence, just as I have my own place. Maybe, just maybe, that blowhard was put in my way, for the express purpose of teaching me to not also be a blowhard. He, in turn, is given his own lessons. It all works together. 

 

Through the daily grind, the work of simply being human is forgotten. What must be done? Let me take a complete responsibility for myself, and finally stop showing off.

 

The work to be done is right here, in my own head and in my own heart. No pedigree is necessary, no honors are necessary, no glory is necessary. No one else needs to see it, because, quite honestly, it isn’t their business. The real work will be done inside, where there is no opportunity for making a scene. 

 

Once I have a feeling, it is my place to now make something of that feeling. Did it arise from my own choices? Then it will come and go with those very choices. Did it come to me without my consent? Then it is still within my power to give it meaning and purpose. 

 

“I couldn’t help myself!” 

 

That isn’t really true, is it? 

 

“I didn’t help myself!”

 

Now we’re talking. 

 

An impression is just an impression, a desire is just a desire, a passion is just a passion. None of these define me, unless I decide to let them do so. I can now focus in on what really makes the difference, the power to form my own judgments. For all the things people can do to me, they can’t do that for me. 

 

And where my own judgment goes, where my own will goes, is what makes or breaks me. What I choose to seek and avoid will be my progress or regress, and no amount of finery and posturing can change that. 

Written in 9/2000