A

September 5th

FOCUS ON WHAT IS YOURS ALONE

“Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free,

and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and

miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem

as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as

truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop

you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing

against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will harm you,

because no harm can affect you.”

—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 1.3

fter Captain James Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam, he
endured seven and a half years in various prison camps. He was
subjected to brutal torture but always struggled to resist. Once, when his
captors intended to force him to appear in a propaganda video, he purposely
and severely injured himself to make that impossible.
When Stockdale’s plane was hit, he told himself that he was “entering
the world of Epictetus.” He didn’t mean that he was attending a philosophy
seminar. He knew what he was to face when he crash-landed. He knew it
wouldn’t be easy to survive.
Interviewed by Jim Collins for the business classic Good to Great,
Stockdale explained there was one group that had the most trouble in the
prison. “It was the optimists,” he said, “... the ones who said, ‘We’re going
to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would
go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would
come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be
Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”