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September   5th

FOCUS   ON  WHAT    IS  YOURS   ALONE

“Remember,  then,   if  you deem    what    is  by  nature  slavish to  be  free,   and what    is  not your    own to  be

yours,  you will    be  shackled    and miserable,  blaming both    gods    and other   people. But if  you deem

as  your    own only    what    is  yours,  and what    belongs to  others  as  truly   not yours,  then    no  one will

ever    be  able    to  coerce  or  to  stop    you,    you will    find    no  one to  blame   or  accuse, you will    do

nothing against your    will,   you will    have    no  enemy,  no  one will    harm    you,    because no  harm    can

affect  you.”

—EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION,    1.3

fter Captain James Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam, he endured seven and a half years in
various prison camps. He was subjected to brutal torture but always struggled to resist. Once, when
his captors intended to force him to appear in a propaganda video, he purposely and severely injured
himself to make that impossible.
When Stockdale’s plane was hit, he told himself that he was “entering the world of Epictetus.” He
didn’t mean that he was attending a philosophy seminar. He knew what he was to face when he crash-
landed. He knew it wouldn’t be easy to survive.
Interviewed by Jim Collins for the business classic Good to Great, Stockdale explained there was one
group that had the most trouble in the prison. “It was the optimists,” he said, “. . . the ones who said,
‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d
say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then
Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
But Stockdale persevered and did make it out. He quenched his desires and focused exclusively on
what he did control: himself.