What Is Up to Us

1 Of things that exist, some are up to us and some are not up to us. Up to us are judgment, impulse, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are the body, property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing.

The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered, unimpeded; the things that are not up to us are weak, slavish, hindered, not our own.

Remember, then, that if you think what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be your own, you will be hindered, you will grieve, you will be troubled, you will blame both gods and men. But if you think only what is yours to be yours, and what is not your own to be, as it is, not your own, no one will ever compel you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will, no one will harm you, you will have no enemy; for you will suffer no harm.

Aiming, then, at such great things, remember that you must not undertake them with moderate effort, but must give up some things entirely and put off others for the present. If you want these things and also want office and wealth, perhaps you will not even get the latter, because you also aim at the former; and certainly you will fail to get the former, through which alone freedom and happiness are achieved.

Practise, then, from the start, saying to every harsh impression: "You are an impression, and not at all what you appear to be." Then examine it and test it by the rules you have, and first and above all by this one: whether it concerns the things that are up to us or the things that are not up to us. And if it concerns something not up to us, have ready the answer: "It is nothing to me."

2 Remember that desire promises the attainment of what you desire, and aversion promises not falling into what you avoid; and that he who fails in his desire is unfortunate, and he who falls into what he avoids is unhappy. If, then, you avoid only what is contrary to nature among the things that are up to you, you will never fall into anything you avoid; but if you avoid sickness or death or poverty, you will be unhappy.

So remove your aversion from all the things that are not up to us, and transfer it to what is contrary to nature among the things that are up to us. As for desire, do away with it entirely for the present. For if you desire any of the things that are not up to us, you are bound to be unfortunate; and of the things that are up to us, those it would be good to desire, none is yet within your reach. Use only impulse and its opposite, choosing and refusing, but lightly, with reservation, and without strain.

3 With everything that delights you, or is useful to you, or that you love, remember to say to yourself what kind of thing it is, beginning with the smallest things. If you love a jug, say: "I love a jug"; then, if it is broken, you will not be troubled. If you kiss your child or your wife, say that you are kissing a human being; then, if one of them dies, you will not be troubled.

4 When you are about to undertake some task, remind yourself what kind of task it is. If you are going out to bathe, picture to yourself what happens at a bath: people splashing, people jostling, people abusing one another, people stealing. And you will undertake the task more safely if you say to yourself at once: "I want to bathe, and to keep my choice in accordance with nature." And so with every task. For then, if anything gets in the way of your bathing, you will have ready the thought: "But this was not all I wanted; I wanted also to keep my choice in accordance with nature; and I shall not keep it if I am vexed at what happens."

5 What troubles people is not things themselves, but their judgments about things. Death, for example, is nothing terrible — or it would have seemed so to Socrates too; the terrible thing is the judgment that death is terrible. When, then, we are hindered or troubled or grieved, let us never blame anyone else, but ourselves, that is, our own judgments. It is the work of an uneducated person to blame others for his own misfortunes; of one who has begun to be educated, to blame himself; and of one fully educated, to blame neither another nor himself.