Focusing on what we can control

Focusing on what we can control in this world.

"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." – Epictetus

The beginning of my journey into Greek philosophy was learning about the Stoics. One of the most important teachings personally was the thought of worrying about the things we can control in our lives and not wasting time worrying about the things we can't control. So often we tend to worry about this thing or that. But if there is nothing we can do to change the outcome then what does all that worrying do?

Well, the answer for me was to give me lots of unnecessary stress. Who needs that?

Sure this does seem may seem like a basic idea. But I can tell you if you can adapt these teachings to your day-to-day life I can promise you a much healthier mindset.

The hardest part of all of this is keeping it front of mind. For example, let's say you read about this teaching, go to bed, and start a new day. Then get a call about an interview for a new job. Let's say this interview is in two days. Now given this is a job you want or need you're going to worry about doing well in the interview to land the job. Here comes the separation about focusing on what we can control.

Worrying about things we have control over; like getting a haircut or the building number are all valid things to worry about. But worrying about things like what happens if I don't get this job or things we have no control over does nothing but create unnecessary stress.

Even though we know about the teaching of "trying to focus on the things we can control". We forget to adapt these to day-to-day life. The best way to remedy this is to set reminders. This could be on a phone or whichever works best for you.

So tomorrow let's try to focus on the things we can control!