We live in a world where instant gratification appears the norm -- next-day delivery of online orders, frustration when text messages go unanswered within minutes, irritation when having to wait for an appointment to repair an appliance or see the doctor.When things or events happen as we think they should, we are satisfied…content…we are happy; when they don’t, our emotional response ranges from disappointment to anger, as if some external event somehow rides herd over our emotional state. We live in a time when how we feel seems somehow controlled by circumstances beyond our power, as if puppets on a string with fate the marionette. But is this true?
Epictetus, an ancient Greek stoic philosopher, wrote that there is only one way to happiness: to cease worrying about things beyond our control. But what is under our control? Our thoughts, our beliefs, and our actions…for “things” are not always what they appear to be:
There once was a farmer who owned a horse and lived in ancient China with his family. His neighbors said how lucky he was to have such a fine horse to pull his plow through the fields.
The farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
One day the horse broke through the gate and ran away. His neighbors came around to lament his terrible loss, saying it was a terrible bit of bad luck.
The farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
Days later the horse returned to the farm along with seven wild horses. His neighbors came around to exclaim his remarkable good fortune, saying, “Now you are rich!”
The farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
A few weeks later the farmer’s son was training the new wild horses and fell off and broke his leg. The neighbors came around to commiserate his misfortune and said, “What bad luck!”
The farmer replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
The next week the army came around taking all the able-bodied young men from the village to fight in the war. The farmer’s son with the broken leg was left behind. The neighbors now lamented the loss of their sons and commented on how lucky the farmer was to have his son.
And so the story goes on…
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, and stoic philosopher once said, if you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
