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Alternatively, in the case of our colleague’s promotion, we might choose to renew our attempt to secure our own desired preferment. While this sounds like a perfectly good response – ‘Don’t worry about what your friend is up to, focus on getting ahead yourself’ – we now hit an interesting conundrum. Whether or not we get a promotion: is that under our control? On which side of the line does that fall? Should we try to control it and face anxiety if we don’t succeed, or pay no attention to it and lose any drive to get ahead in our work? If we unpack this puzzle, we realise that it is confusing not because Epictetus’s bifurcation is too simplistic but because the scenario justifies closer attention. There are some aspects of securing a promotion

that are under our control and others that are not. The same might be said for achievement in many areas of life. We wish to be successful: is that under our control or not? It’s both. If we are to take Epictetus’s wise advice on board and see how it might help us with this quite common circumstance of having only partial control of the things that concern us, we have to spend a moment distinguishing between what is ours to take charge of and what is not. Then, simply, we only bother about the part that is. Magically, the overall results will then tend to improve.

Epictetus has already given us the guideline for sorting through this: only the parts that concern what we think and do are worthy of our attention. The rest of it we can ignore. So in the case of hoping for a promotion, we are in control of how well we work, the time and effort we put into our jobs and, to an extent, making sure that our endeavours are visible to the people who might choose to reward us. Moreover, if we set about exercising this control with the thought ‘I will work as well as I can and furthermore make sure that my good work is visible’, we can make sure we achieve exactly that. We will look more at the wisdom of this approach and its relationship to fame and public success in a later chapter.

We are not, however, in control of whether or not our boss chooses to offer us the advancement we would like. He will have his own pressures and his own preferences, which have nothing to do with us. We cannot control these. If we try to, we are fighting a losing battle. So that part we have to let go. We can make sure that our attitudes and actions are in line with what would be needed for a promotion, but we should not try to control matters beyond that point. And it’s no coincidence that when people do seek to control the external event rather than just their own thoughts and actions, their efforts tend to backfire. Trying, for example, to win over your boss in an attempt to secure the promotion would most likely be misguided: he may well see through your thinly veiled efforts and react against them.

At the 2012 Academy New Member Reception, Bryan Cranston was asked if he had advice for his fellow actors. His answer is informed by Stoic thinking and thus has relevance far beyond the confines of how an actor might best approach auditions:

The best advice for fellow actors is this: know what your job is … An actor is supposed to create a compelling and interesting character that serves the text and to present it in the environment where your audition happens, and then you walk away. That’s it. Everything else that happens is out of your control, so don’t even think of that, don’t focus on that.

You’re not going there to get a job. You’re going there to present what you do.

You act. And there it is. And walk away. There’s power in that …

It’s also saying ‘I can only do so much’, and then the decision of who might get a job is so out of your control that … it makes no sense to hold on to that …

Once I adopted that philosophy, I never looked back, and I’ve never been busier in my life.

William B. Irvine, the modern Stoic who offered us the last-person-in-the-world

William B. Irvine, the modern Stoic who offered us the last-person-in-the-world thought experiment, neatly encapsulates this question of control with a sporting metaphor.⁴ When we play a game of tennis, we are only partially in control of the outcome. If we fixate on the thought ‘I must win this game’, then we are trying to control something that we cannot. Our opponent might be better than us. He or she might start to beat us, and then we would feel like we were failing. We’d feel disappointment and anxiety. Failure is a disturbing feeling.

Instead, we can enter the game with the aim of ‘I will play this game as well as I can.’ Now we can make sure that we do that: how well we play is under our control.

We may not win, but we can successfully play to the very best of our abilities as we intended. If our opponent starts to beat us, we are not failing. And again, it’s no coincidence that we will almost always play better when we approach a game with this attitude. We will feel less anxiety and pressure, and are far more likely to remain focused and comfortable. Our game improves.

It’s interesting that this Stoic ideal greatly reduces the likelihood of a feeling of failure. We should never aim to achieve anything that is out of our control, therefore we can always feel in control of the outcome. We may not play the game of tennis to the best of our ability, but at least all the variables involved in that task are under our power. If we don’t play as well as we hoped, we’ll know why and can correct it next time; this is not the same as pinning all our hopes on winning and then having them dashed by fortune when our opponent thrashes us. There is no anguish in the Stoic approach and plenty in the other.

Epictetus is showing us not only how to perform better but also how to circumscribe bad feelings when things don’t go as well as would have been ideal.

This is a far more delicate approach to ‘no failure’ than we would expect from the roaring motivators of modern times. These, as we have seen, tend to presume that by self-belief and goal-setting (visualising ourselves winning and so on) we can claim full control over our achievements and therefore fortune itself. However, as we now know, this blind optimism rarely thinks to distinguish between what is and what is not in our control, and instead relies on rhetoric and the inculcation of sheer faith to have us believe that everything is under our sway – even the universe itself – if only we believe and desire strongly enough. This does not reflect the reality of life, or that x=y diagonal along which we meet with the daily offerings of fortune.

Another area where our misplaced efforts to wield control tend to backfire is that very human concern, known to many but not to all, of wanting people to like us.

Normally, when I meet new people, I want them to think well of me. If someone within that group is quiet and does not clearly signal that they approve – a response I arbitrarily equate with how much they laugh at my jokes – then I sometimes find myself persevering in an attempt to win over that person. At this point, I am stepping outside of what is in my control. I step up the gags, pay them too much attention and most likely overwhelm them. I make a dick of myself by trying too hard.

If, instead, I were to pay attention to the Stoic fork and did not try to control what

If, instead, I were to pay attention to the Stoic fork and did not try to control what was beyond my domain, I might think ‘I will be the nicest and friendliest person I can be around people.’ Beyond that, how they choose to respond to me is their business, not mine. And I wouldn’t then find myself mentally reviewing my behaviour late at night, regretting a stupid comment I made and scolding myself for being an idiot.

So there we have it: an unexpected corollary of Epictetus’s advice. If we ignore everything over the other side of that line – everything that we do not control, everything other than our own thoughts and actions – we tend to remove anxiety and even achieve more success. And by reminding ourselves, as and when pressures arise, to distinguish between the component parts of what we can and cannot command, we start to live our lives in the glow of tranquillity: one that the classical philosophers tell us is a realistic and achievable model of happiness.

Indifferents

The Stoics referred to these external things as ‘indifferents’. If we ultimately attach no importance to them, we can be sure that if they disappear from our lives, we won’t suffer too great a pain of missing them. ‘Permit nothing to cleave to you that is not your own,’ Epictetus says, ‘nothing to grow to you that may give you agony when it is torn away.’⁵

Because indifferents exist in the realm of external things, it follows not only that we cannot control them but also that we may lose them one day. Our property, our house, all the things we value fall on that far side of the line. We may lose our job and have to sell our home; we may lose or break our possessions and have to do without.

Their continued existence in our lives is not guaranteed, and to act as if it is, is akin to a misguided presumption of control. Therefore we must relinquish that feeling of authority and let go of the attachment we might feel. Two powerful, positive consequences result from practising this non-attachment: we learn to value those things more by appreciating their transience in our lives, and we are more prepared for the moment we lose them.

The Stoics took this non-attachment towards indifferents very seriously. Seneca recommended that we mentally rehearse losing everything we have – family and property – to learn to value them more and be ready for when fortune strikes and they are taken from us. In fact, he went so far as to say we should, every now and then, purposefully go without the luxuries in our lives and live for a day here and there as a pauper, estranged from people and things that bring us comfort, in order to soften the blow should we ever find ourselves destitute.

This was the situation somewhat forced upon Steven, the protagonist in Apocalypse, a two-part programme I made for Channel 4 in 2012. A young man who by all reports took what he had for granted, he became the unwitting participant in an enormous stunt where the family and life he knew were taken away from him.

The idea was to rekindle his appreciation for them both. After a period of controlling

his news sources, and having his friends and family play their parts, we had him believe the world was about to end through a collision with a huge meteor. After being stranded in a controlled environment and witnessing our sequence of pyrotechnic destruction, he was put to sleep (he had been chosen for his high levels of hypnotic susceptibility) and woke up alone in a post-apocalyptic world. His journey through our zombie re-envisioning of The Wizard of Oz had him discover the qualities of courage, selflessness and decisiveness that he lacked, and ultimately taught him to value that existence he had previously paid little attention to. This correlated with the thinking that should be familiar to us from the Epicureans: learn to desire what you already have, and you will have all you need.

There is an ironic twist here: by undoing our attachment to external things and people, we can value them more. The word ‘attachment’ might be misleading: surely we must be attached to things to really value them? Surely we wouldn’t want to care less about our loved ones? Perhaps feeling less attached would undo some of the eventual misery of losing them, but are we being seriously asked to distance ourselves from our loved ones to protect ourselves from future loss?

No. The Stoic route to valuing things is to accept that whether they come or go from our lives is not under our control. This understanding allows us to enjoy them even more, because we know that we will not have them in our lives forever. We can look at the things and people we value each day with the knowledge that we will most likely lose them at some point, and love them all the more for that. One day your best friend may move away, and you may never see each other again. Loved ones may die or become estranged. Your partner, despite your promises to love each other forever, may one day leave you. In fact, it is inevitable: through death or choice, your closest relationships will end.

Remembering this invites us to express our feelings to those we love now while we can, to never take them for granted, and to not regret, when it’s too late, that they never knew how important they were to us. And we will mitigate the future shock and despair that might otherwise hit us if we lose them for good. In an extraordinary passage from his Discourses, Epictetus gives us this advice:

Remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you for the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or bunch of grapes in the appointed season; and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool … Henceforth, whenever you take delight in anything, bring to mind the contrary impression. What harm is there while you are kissing your child to say softly, ‘Tomorrow you will die’; and likewise to your friend, ‘Tomorrow either you or I will go away, and we shall see each other no more’?

Presumably we are to speak such words quietly to ourselves rather than directly to our children and friends. Either way, it might strike us as a little morbid and unnecessary. But perhaps this is a matter of degree: to fixate upon the mortality of

our children or the transience of most friendships would bring its own form of anxiety and defeat the Stoic purpose. But an occasional reminder of how lucky we are to have the gift of these relationships in our lives can only do us good. This must come from considering the sobering thought that they will one day come to an end.

If we knew these treasured relationships would last truly forever, to trip and dance through the Garden Immortal and never die, what effort would we make and for how long? Why buy flowers when they will never leave? Why value time spent together when you have infinite repetitions ahead of you? Would you still fall asleep with interlocked forms and whisper ‘I love you’ every night for the rest of time?

Would you continue to surprise each other with breakfast on any of eternity’s mornings you chose, knowing that the rapture of either activity would be quickly lost in the tiniest flickering instant of infinity’s interminable drudge?

To treasure something is to hold on to it carefully, realising that it is precious and risks being lost or taken from us. It is only the finite nature of our relationships that gives them their meaning. Bittersweet transience lends context and value. It is intoxicating in the first six months of love to pledge ourselves for the rest of our lives. It is also brave and deeply caring to accept, at least quietly to oneself, that this may prove untenable, or that a lifespan may not turn out to be the generous stretch of time we imagined. That knowledge might then flood us with a more steadfast kind of love that values the present rather than venerating an imagined future and, unlike the inflamed delirium of its early incarnation that flickers and wanes, grows only brighter with bounded time.

The Stoics added an important qualification to this notion of indifferents, which might come as a small relief to us if we find the idea of ‘non-attachment’ towards the comforts of home, income and family difficult to swallow. Unlike the Epicurean school, the Stoics did not call for a life of horticultural quarantine and simple carbohydrates. We remember they were active in the community, politically engaged and often very successful, to the extent that their detractors often accused them of hypocrisy. How might one balance apathy towards ‘externals’ or

‘indifferents’ with the accumulation of wealth or exerted efforts to bring about social change? The answer lies in their sub-category of ‘preferred indifferents’.

At the time that Stoicism emerged as a school, the Cynic movement constituted a well-known philosophical alternative. Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, had in fact begun his philosophical life as a Cynic after moving to Athens and seeking out the wisest people he could find in the tradition of Socrates. The Cynics famously made a great show of their contempt for the trappings of ancient Greek society:

Diogenes, their leader, was content to masturbate in the street. When an admiring Alexander the Great offered him anything he might desire, he replied only that the famed king move out of his sunlight. Early Stoicism, which was as much concerned with trickier notions of free will and logic as it was with ethics and the good life, took its cue from the Cynics and ruled harshly on the notion of attachment to external goods. But later Stoicism softened a little in this regard as it became increasingly popular.

Thus it became permissible to prefer certain external things such as wealth, family and social position, as long as one didn’t become attached to them. Stoics do not have

Thus it became permissible to prefer certain external things such as wealth, family and social position, as long as one didn’t become attached to them. Stoics do not have