Focusing on what's in our control

If you desire something outside your control, you are bound to be disappointed.
— Epictetus (125 CE), Enchiridion, Chapter 2
If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.
— Ghandi (1913 CE), The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume XII, April 1913 to December 1914

The Stoic school of philosophy

The Stoics were a school of philosophers originating in Ancient Greece, stretching from their founder Zeno of Citium (c. 332-262 BCE) to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE). Whilst the Stoics didn't agree on everything, the philosophy and way of living they developed contains insights into human life and psychology that is just as relevant now as then.

In modern times, Stoicism inspired Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), an evidence-based approach for fixing distortions in how we think. It's also seen a resurgence in the last decade, perhaps as a way of helping people to navigate our modern times, when many aspects of life remain outside our control. This concept of what is and isn't in our control is core to Stoic practice, so let's dive in.

The dichotomy of control

The Stoics believed in dividing the things we might worry about into two categories: things that are in our control, and things that are not.

Outside our control

Let's begin with the things we can't control. Some things that are random or chaotic are clearly outside our control. For example, whether it will rain in Vancouver tomorrow, whether a terrorist attack will occur in Japan, or whether the global economy will take a downturn next year.

If someone is worried about these things, we can comfort them by reminding them that such events are outside their control. Since we cannot influence such events, we can save a lot of energy by accepting them, even if they have outcomes that we wouldn't prefer. Most people see this, and agree.

Less obviously, the past is also outside our control — it's already happened. This is true of the immediate present too — we are here. Despite this, people often worry about or ruminate on the past rather than accepting it, wasting a lot of their energy.

For things that are outside our control, the Stoics believe that we should spend no energy on them, not even to wish that they were (or will be) different. Any such energy we spend would be wasted, when we could instead spend it on things inside our control.

Inside our control

When we consider things inside our control, we might first think of our actions. For example, surely I can control what I do, what I eat, where I go, who I talk to and what I say. But actually, these things are less in our control than we often realise. You might decide to go see a movie, but your bus does not come; decide to eat healthy, but end up eating junk; decide to give a speech, but end up stuttering.

In fact, the Stoics believe that the only things truly in our control are our perspective, what we call good and bad, and our intent, what we plan to do. Mastering this attitude is really hard, but focusing our energy here where we can make a difference pays off far better than worrying about things we cannot change.

Inside our influence

Most people will follow this reasoning, and roughly agree with this perspective, but they will get stuck on the broad category of things that are under our influence, but not in our direct control.

Irvine uses the example of playing tennis. All manner of things might happen on the court; whether or not we win the game depends on many factors which are outside our control. But winning does require effort; if we make no effort, we will lose. So winning is neither totally in our control, nor totally outside it; it is under our influence.

Take a bigger example, that of man made climate change. Whether or not the global climate changes and becomes warmer is not under our personal control. But if every person made no effort, and demanded no change, the evidence suggests the climate will warm dramatically, leading to poor outcomes. So somehow, our actions do have an influence on the global climate.

In situations where we have influence but not control, we can focus on something that is in our control: our intent. We can choose to do our best to win the tennis match, just as we can choose to do our best to make climate-friendly choices. If we have done our best, by definition we need not worry that we didn't do more.

Developing practical wisdom

By focusing on what is and isn't in our control, the Stoics aimed to develop practical wisdom (phronêsis). Since Stoicism is a lived philosophy, rather than a theory, we can ask: how can we shift our perspective so that we focus more and more on things that are inside our control?

Stoics offer two approaches, evening reflection and inspirational sayings. Firstly, each evening, you can spend a little time reflecting on the significant moments on your day, how you reacted to them, and how you could act or react better in future. Secondly, although we consider inspirational quotes to be cheesy, you can use such quotes during your day to be reminded of the perspective you would like to take. Buddhism also uses this approach of short slogans to summarise teachings and bring them to mind quickly.

By taking these approaches, we can gradually focus our energy more and more on things that are in our control, and thus things that we can actually change.

Learning more

This post is the first in a sequence on Stoic philosophy, including practical techniques. Part 2 looks at negative visualisation, another Stoic technique for keeping perspective and finding joy in life.

If you want to learn more about the dichotomy of control, I recommend some further reading: