A Stoic’s Chief Task in Life
This might be the hardest lesson I’ve been asked to learn. And if it didn’t come from Epictetus I’d call bull shit. But it’s Epictetus, the former slave endured enough with a smile on his face that he deserves our reverence.
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own… ”
If you’re not careful, you’ll miss the fact that in his first 5 words Epictetus makes a massive declaration. Not only has he identified the chief task in life, but it’s also a simple one. Not simple in execution but simple in the sense that there’s no need for additional deliberation about what could be your alternative chief task in life.
He slices our experience of the world in two, throws half of it in a dark corner and effectively says, don’t look over there but no matter what crawls out of there, take it in stride. Instead of wasting your time looking over there, keep your focus here, on the controllable.
Epictetus, is not playing with you…There’s no subtlety or nuance here, he sees the world as binary. That makes the simple task harder to bear because you have nowhere to hide. There’s nothing that requires interpretation. Your mind isn’t left in a philosophical maze where it can rationalize its way out to a nice, comfortable place. No, here you have to accept or decline his position, that good and evil exist within yourself and the choices you make.