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March 17th

THE BEAUTY OF CHOICE

“You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for

choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.1.39b–40a

t’s that line in the movie Fight Club: “You are not your job, you’re not
how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive.
You’re not the contents of your wallet.” Obviously our friend Epictetus
never saw that movie or read the book—but apparently the consumerism of
the 1990s existed in ancient Rome too.
It’s easy to confuse the image we present to the world for who we
actually are, especially when media messaging deliberately blurs that
distinction.
You might look beautiful today, but if that was the result of vain
obsession in the mirror this morning, the Stoics would ask, are you actually
beautiful? A body built from hard work is admirable. A body built to
impress gym rats is not.
That’s what the Stoics urge us to consider. Not how things appear, but
what effort, activity, and choices they are a result of.