“If any external thing causes you distress, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgment about it. And this you have the power to eliminate now.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47
The first principle of Stoicism - that we don’t respond or react to actual events, rather to our judgments and opinions about them - needs to be as hard wired as possible into the remnant's basic operating system, something that loads into our brain as we wake each morning and reboot for a new day. Since our judgments and opinions are of our own creation it follows that it's up to us to develop and evolve our judgments and opinions so that they reflect as accurately as possible the objective world around us.
Intellectually, this is easy to grasp. Easy, that is, relative to the effort it takes to actually practice this principle. Developing and optimizing this seemingly simple habit is fraught with uncertainty and perpetually at risk of corruption. Often, a jungle of outdated mental models and tangled beliefs need to be cleared away before the first principle can take root and thrive. Speaking from experience, in some cases this can take years of diligent effort. Take heart, though. In the near-term great progress can be made.
In short, it's you that's in control of your internal world while having vanishing little control over the external world.
"Don't trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours - namely, your judgments about the things that you control and don't control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and powerful."
- Epictetus, Discourses, 3.26.3435
Where to start? The answer is quite simple, actually.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- Author Unknown1
Perhaps a somewhat ubiquitous example will help illustrate just how frequently we encounter this space.
We've all had friends with whom we've had a falling out. Maybe the falling out was gradual, maybe it was sudden. However it happened, we realized that our friend had a view on the world - maybe about an event or what they thought about another person - that was different from your's in a way that was discordant, perhaps even offensive. That moment of realization is the space between stimulus and response. It's the space during which you made a decision, probably unconsciously. (As the saying goes, you cannot not decide. Deciding not to decide is a decision.) What was your decision?
My friend is stupid/crazy/delusional.
I can't be friends with this person.
This person is a threat to my view of the world.
This person is no longer a member of my tribe.
If you have more growth mindset than fixed mindset, perhaps you decided something different, maybe to get curious and ask questions of yourself.
I wonder what they see that I don't?
Why does (or doesn't) this change upset me?
Is something missing from what I understand?
How important is this difference?
By all means, do whatever you can, whatever is necessary, to become aware of and grow the space between stimulus and response. This is the space in which you have complete control for making decisions that are in the best interests of furthering reliable and healthy beliefs, values, and virtues.
However, just creating the space probably creates a cognitive vacuum that's prone to collapse on itself or, worse, be filled by someone else. It needs to be filled with something useful, something you decide needs to be there.
Here are a few suggestions for where to start:
Master the skill of thinking about the world in terms of systems and relationships
Learn and stay with a mindfulness practice that works for you.
Write out your thought processes. Frequently called "journaling," but know there are many ways to go about this. Writing for The Remnants Way is one of the ways I refine my thinking about the world. I've been following Julia Cameron's "Pages"2 approach to writing for decades.
"Knowing Who's in Control of What" last updated on 2024.11.11.
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Footnotes
1 byquoteresearch, P. (2019, January 16). Between stimulus and response there is a space. in that space is our power to choose our response. Quote Investigator. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/02/18/response/
2 Cameron, J. (1992). The artist’s way: A spiritual path to higher creativity. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee.
References
Image by Marc Rickertsen from Pixabay