Stockdale on Stoicism 38

Everybody does have to play the game of life. You can't just walk around saying, "I don't give a damn about health, or wealth, or whether I'm sent to prison or not." 

Epictetus says everybody should play the game of life—that the best play it with "skill, form, speed, and grace." 

But like most games, you play it with a ball. Your team devotes all its energies to getting the ball across the line. But after the game, what do you do with the ball? Nobody much cares. It's not worth anything. 

The competition, the game, was the thing. The ball was "used" to make the game possible, but it in itself is not of any value that would justify falling on your sword for it. 

The ball-game analogy, incidentally, is almost a verbatim quote of Epictetus's explanation to his students in Nicopolis, colonial Greece, 2,000 years ago. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison