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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.