I

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.