Epictetus, Discourses 2.1.3

Wherefore, as is likely with men who are mistaken in the greatest matters, we convert our natural confidence into something bold, desperate, reckless, shameless, whereas we change our natural caution and modesty into a cowardly and abject quality, full of fears and perturbations. 
 
For if a man transfers his caution to the region of the will and the operations of the will, with the will to be cautious he will find that the will to avoid lies in his control: while if he turns his caution to what is beyond the control of our will, inasmuch as his will to avoid will be directed to what depends upon others he will of necessity be subject to fear, inconstancy, and perturbation. 
 
For it is not death or pain which is a fearful thing, but the fear of pain or death. Therefore, men praise him who said: 
 
“Not death, but shameful death, is to be feared." 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.1 

 
It was Aristotle who most helped me to understand why an action only becomes fully good within the context of the intentions and the circumstances. If, for example, you tell me to be brave, all the willpower in the world will be useless without the prudence to grasp the end for which I am risking life and limb, and the judgment to discern my capacity for facing the danger. The absence of such awareness will swiftly trap me in the extremes of being either cowardly or foolhardy. 
 
Should I be confident or cautious? Yes. Let me be confident that the world will not throw anything at me that I cannot put to good use, and let me be cautious in the way I go about distinguishing the true from the false, the right from the wrong. 
 
What I find here is yet another application of the old Stoic maxim: when I focus on the clarity of my thinking, I no longer need to worry about the difficulty in my living. 
 
So much of the contemporary “self-help” movement stresses that we can be whatever we want to be, if we just put our minds to it. There is much truth to this, but as with any attempts at a quick fix, it neglects to distinguish about what is truly within our power. I will be sorely disappointed if I try to transform lead into gold, though my nature is quite well suited to transforming vices into virtues. 
 
I should commit myself to changing what is mine to change, and then be content with letting the rest go about its own business. Peace of mind will make me happy, not gold. 
 
The bitter irony is that we express the greatest confidence about forcing the circumstances to conform to our wills, when in reality we are absolutely terrified of what the world might do to us without a moment’s notice. As much as we don’t wish to admit it, we know full well that the slightest twitch of fate could immediately mean crippling poverty, excruciating pain, or irrevocable death. 
 
Yet none of that has to ruin us, once we recognize that our merit is in the dignity of what we do, regardless of what is done to us. 
 
I will have to die, whether today or tomorrow, and that leaves me with the liberty to die in good standing, fearing nothing except the failure of my own conscience. 

—Reflection written in 5/2001 

IMAGE: Joachim Patinir, Landscape with the Crossing of the River Styx (c. 1520)