It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
– Epictetus
Yes, this one is a tried and true Stoic standard. It has been re-purposed in many ways, by many different philosophers…and definitely isn’t unique to the Stoic school of though either. It probably doesn’t need too much expanding upon, but I feel like it’s important enough to add as one of my posts and that’s because too often when maxims like this are so simple and so straightforward, we often forget to take the time to internalize them and actively practice them in our day to day lives.
We have absolutely no control over the things that happen to us. None. We cannot control whether or not our boss is an asshole, we cannot control whether our kids wake up on the wrong side of everything and decide today is the day to express it, we cannot control the traffic we hit, and we cannot control the moods and the emotions of all of those people that we feel are closing in on us. What we can control is how we respond to each and every one of those stimuli. We have the opportunity everyday, in every single interaction with the world around us, to make a choice. That choice is whether or not we will allow the ‘thing’ to have an effect on how we respond to it.
It’s seems so easy! But you and I both know, that too often we allow our emotions to override our actions. As opposed to being in control of ourselves, we allow that which is acting upon us to be in control of us. This avalanche will sweep you up more quickly than you can possibly imagine. Fight giving in at all costs, because as soon as you lose control over your reactions, you’ve lost control of the only thing you truly have the power to dictate. I want to stress here though, you don’t need to be perfect when it comes to this practice. Like almost everything, incremental improvements in this realm will pay dividends down the line. There will always be instances where the stimuli is simply too overwhelming to take a step back and “philosophize” about it…trust me, I’m right there with you. But the more we attempt to incorporate this practice into our daily lives, even just by starting with those small things that we would normally let derail our day, is a huge step in the right direction. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll find yourself so Stoic in stimuli response that even ol’ Epictetus would be proud.
