I

March   19th

TIMELESS    WISDOM

“For    there   are two rules   to  keep    at  the ready—that  there   is  nothing good    or  bad outside my  own

reasoned    choice, and that    we  shouldn’t   try to  lead    events  but to  follow  them.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.10.18

n the mid-twentieth century, there was an Indian Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello. Born in
Bombay when it was still under British control, de Mello was an amalgam of many different cultures
and perspectives: East, West; he even trained as a psychotherapist. It’s interesting when one sees timeless
wisdom develop across schools, across epochs and ideas. Here is a quote from de Mello’s book, The
Way to Love, that sounds almost exactly like Epictetus:

“The    cause   of  my  irritation  is  not in  this    person  but in  me.”

Remember, each individual has a choice. You are always the one in control. The cause of irritation—
or our notion that something is bad—that comes from us, from our labels or our expectations. Just as
easily, we can change those labels; we can change our entitlement and decide to accept and love what’s
happening around us. And this wisdom has been repeated and independently discovered in every century
and every country since time began.