Advice for a Fulfilled Life

An ancient philosopher’s advice for living a fulfilled life, even in the darkest times: “Everything in your life is your responsibility, and every negative occurrence is bad because of how you dealt with it, not what happened.”

Few who knew Epictetus would have considered him lucky. He was born a slave 2,000 years ago. He lived and died in poverty. He was permanently crippled from a broken leg given to him by his master. The reason his name has lived on for so long, however, is not for the misfortunes he suffered. He is remembered as a philosopher.

Along with Seneca (philosopher and advisor to emperor Nero) and Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor), his work spread the wisdom of Stoic philosophy perhaps more than anyone else. Even today, the principles he embraced are used by people of all cultures and nationalities.

Without getting into the details, the core idea of Stoicism is to be aware of what you can and can’t control. With that awareness, one can avoid misery (misfortune) by changing what you can control and letting go of what you cannot. It is an incredibly simple and powerful concept—and often referred to as the most practical of the ancient and modern philosophies.

What is admirable about Epictetus is that he showed the extent of its effectiveness through example. In spite of his circumstances, it appears he lived a happy, fulfilled life. His epitaph for himself was: “Here lies Epictetus, a slave maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.”

Inner Locus of Control

Change what you can control. Let go of what you can’t control. Psychologists call this an inner locus of control. It inspires people to see that internal, not external, factors shape how life plays out. For better or worse, the responsibility is ours.

It’s so elegant that it almost sounds too good to be true. In a way, it is because it’s easy to say, and even understand, but in practice it gets messy. We may know we can’t control random interruptions when deeply focused on work or when a person cuts us off in traffic, but that doesn’t mean our response doesn’t show annoyance.

It’s not an unfamiliar situation. How would Epictetus respond?

Simply: Everything in our life is our responsibility. Every negative occurrence is ‘bad’ because of how we deal with it, not what happened. The world is not fair, life is hard, there is stress and pain. With renewed mindset, we begin to associate the annoyances of life (even if valid) with our own ability to deal with them. Such associations establish proactive links to the events of life.

Things will always go wrong. Over a long enough timeline, ‘bad’ things happen to EVERYONE. Misery does not arise from external events. It grows from within. This means that although adversity can be influenced and inspired by circumstances, it is largely unrelated to being lucky or unlucky, rich or poor, loved or unloved. Misery treats everyone the same.

Beyond basic needs like food and shelter, most of us have everything we need to avoid distress. What matters is our ability to see challenges and difficulties as something other than challenges and difficulties. Epictetus said, “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”

Finding Collective Consciousness

This is all logical enough to grasp. If it was simple to apply, the world would already be doing it for 2000 years. That said, it requires consistent effort and application. It demands not only understanding, but a daily commitment to embrace all that life is, and to remember we are part of something much bigger that we cannot yet see or comprehend.

The fact is, our outer senses limit our focus and narrowly group our perceptions and understanding of the world around us. They limit the real range of our consciousness. The feeling of a fully human, fully alive, fulfilled life cannot arise using the limited scope of our outer senses as we usually permit ourselves.

It is important for humankind to use, and experiment with, our inner senses for human potential to be fully realized. New concepts arise that are unbounded, and connect in a most intimate way to all other things in the universe.

In the grand scheme of things, we are all here for a brief moment in a space-time continuum. That moment may be imposed on us without our say, but it does not shape how we experience it. The universe is not concerned with what we want. It does, however, provide all the physical and metaphysical elements needed to enjoy it.

Beliefs create reality. It is possible for ideas to cause chemical reactions that impede or promote the health of our bodies. BELIEFS THEMSELVES ARE TOOLS. The most favorable view of a problem is as least as probable as the most unfortunate view. All actions have consequences that may or may not be intended. But negative thoughts and beliefs lead to destruction and positive ones promote/support life. We only have to find the meaning inside us and change our reality to be the positive experience it is because of what we learn from it. Then we discover the resilience of the human spirit, begin to see the world in a whole, new way and feel the joy of fulfillment.