I

March   29th

WHY DO  YOU NEED    TO  IMPRESS THESE   PEOPLE  AGAIN?

“If you should  ever    turn    your    will    to  things  outside your    control in  order   to  impress someone,    be

sure    that    you have    wrecked your    whole   purpose in  life.   Be  content,    then,   to  be  a   philosopher in

all that    you do, and if  you wish    also    to  be  seen    as  one,    show    yourself    first   that    you are and you

will    succeed.”

—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION,     23

s there anything sadder than the immense lengths we’ll go to impress someone? The things we’ll do to
earn someone’s approval can seem, when examined in retrospect, like the result of some temporary
form of insanity. Suddenly we’re wearing uncomfortable, ridiculous clothes we’ve been told are cool,
eating differently, talking differently, eagerly waiting for a call or text. If we did these things because we
liked it, that would be one thing. But that’s not what it is. It’s just a means to an end—to get someone to
give us the nod.
The irony, as Marcus Aurelius points out repeatedly, is that the people whose opinion we covet are
not all that great. They’re flawed—they’re distracted and wowed by all sorts of silly things themselves.
We know this and yet we don’t want to think about it. To quote Fight Club again, “We buy things we don’t
need, to impress people we don’t like.”
Doesn’t that sound pretty ridiculous? But more than that, isn’t it about as far as possible as you can get
from the serenity and security that philosophy can provide?