I filtered the notes I took while reading Discourses to share the two rules that Epictetus repeatedly gives for eliminating anxiety and fear:
- Concern yourself only with what is in your control; remain indifferent to everything else.
- Align your will with nature. Nothing can go contrary to your wishes if you wish for things to happen the way they happen.
Plenty of self-help books say that fear runs our lives, which I would agree with.
They say things like, stay out of your comfort zone, or do one thing a day that scares you.
This is great advice, but it presupposes a critical detail: that we are aware of our fears.
This is important, I’m realizing, because some of my fears are subliminal. And how can I face a fear I don’t know I have?
Luckily, Epictetus has an answer.
If we implement the two rules above, if we keep our labeling of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ to our own choices, if we align our will with nature, wouldn’t it follow that we would have no anxiety or fear to face in the first place?
Here’s a good recent example of how my fear went undetected:
I’ve been working with a writer/research assistant for about a year now. He’s a really cool guy who works with big-name authors, and I believe in his work and message. All of our correspondence has been through email, but I’ve been wanting to meet face to face to introduce myself and speak with him less formally. He lives in another state, so to meet him I would have to take time off work and travel. After some preliminary planning, I decided next year would be better. Next year I wouldn’t be as busy.
But after reading Discourses, and mulling over the above two rules, I had an enlightening revelation: I can just ask him to hop on a Zoom call with me.
I realized that my fear—fear of rejection, fear of annoying him, fear of saying something wrong, fear of being vulnerable—had kept me from seeing the obvious. At the time, however, I didn’t think that pushing a meeting to next year had anything to do with fear. My mind rationalized that next year would simply be a better time. (Like Steven Pressfield said, “We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.'”)
And here’s the thing: I wouldn’t have had this fear in the first place if Epictetus’s two rules for eliminating anxiety and fear were more thoroughly embedded into my way of thinking. It’s probable I would have seen the obvious from the start. (It makes me wonder what other undetected fears are holding me back.)
My revelation came when I:
- Limited my thinking to what I could control (ask him for 15 minutes of his time)
- Shrugged off the “what-if” scenarios (he can say no and that’s perfectly fine because that is not in my control, and therefore, not my concern)
Here’s how I imagine a conversation with Epictetus about my concerns would go:
What if I ask him to meet on Zoom and he says no?
What concern is that of yours?
Yeah, true. Well what if he agrees to meet but he’s secretly annoyed with me?
Let me ask you, do you control how he feels?
No.
And if he declines your request or becomes annoyed, tell me, in what way does that harm you?
It doesn’t.
Correct. If another person’s actions or thoughts had the ability to harm you, you would be right to be fearful. But, as you know, harm is only found in your own actions and thoughts. Another person’s actions or thoughts cannot harm you. Even if they throw you in prison, even if they bind you in chains, they cannot touch the divinity that exists in you: your soul, your will. Your willingness to accept fate cannot be broken, only relinquished.
But what if I say something stupid?
If by ‘say something stupid’ you mean ‘make a mistake,’ I will ask, you are human, correct?
I am.
So it follows that you are liable to make mistakes?
It does.
You see, only plants and animals mindlessly obey. The gift that separates us humans is our ability to reflect and reason. Therefore, it’s our duty to use this gift by exerting ourselves and making mistakes. Otherwise, we’d be content grazing grass all day…
But what if it doesn’t go as planned?
Haven’t you reminded yourself to align your will with nature? If you wish for things to occur how they actually occur, in what way could they not go according to your plan? Besides, what is fated to happen has already been written in the stars the moment you were born. Everything has been decided. You do, however, have free will. You are free to will yourself to accept and make proper use of fate, of what’s already been decided. That is free will. Like a dog tied to a cart: we can be dragged by fate, or we can run along with it. We can graciously stay the course—or grudgingly be kept on it.
There’s nothing to fear, nothing to calculate, and no one who can cause me harm or anxiety as long as I remember the two rules: focus on my own actions, and willingly accept everything else.