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December    16th

EVERLASTING GOOD    HEALTH

“I  tell    you,    you only    have    to  learn   to  live    like    the healthy person  does    .   .   .   living  with    complete

confidence. What    confidence? The only    one worth   holding,    in  what    is  trustworthy,    unhindered,

and can’t   be  taken   away—your   own reasoned    choice.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.26.23b–24

s the Stoics say repeatedly, it’s dangerous to have faith in what you do not control. But your own
reasoned choice? Well, for now that is in your control. Therefore it is one of the few things you can
have confidence in. It’s the one area of health that can’t suddenly be given a terminal diagnosis (except for
the one we all get the day we’re born). It’s the only one that remains pristine and never wears down—it’s
only the user who quits it; never will it quit the user.
In this passage, Epictetus points out that slaves and workers and philosophers alike can live this way.
Socrates, Diogenes, and Cleanthes lived this way—even while they had families and while they were
struggling students.
And so can you.