One of those Stoic sentences that sounds almost annoyingly simple

 

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things." - Epictetus, from The Enchiridion.

Yes—this is one of those Stoic sentences that sounds almost annoyingly simple until you notice how much it explains.

Epictetus isn't saying that events don't matter. A broken leg, a death, a war, a flood—those are not magically transformed into pleasant experiences merely by adopting the right attitude. He's making the narrower point that the additional suffering we experience comes from the judgment we put on the event.

And there’s a useful distinction buried in it: “I lost something” is an observation; “This should not have happened to me, therefore my life is ruined” is an interpretation. The first may be unavoidable. The second is something the mind manufactures.

It also fits rather nicely with your earlier observation about keeping things realistic. Stoicism at its best isn't Pollyanna philosophy. It's more like: first determine what actually happened; then be very suspicious of the story you immediately tell yourself about what happened.

For a “Thought of the Day,” though, I'd give Epictetus a small amendment: Men are disturbed not only by things, but by things that genuinely deserve to disturb them. Otherwise the Stoics risk turning emotional discipline into denial.

Annoying is all I will say.

😂 Fair enough. Sometimes 2,000 years of accumulated wisdom can be distilled to: “Well, yes, Epictetus, but that’s rather annoying.”