What is the Stoic dichotomy of control?

The bus is late, it's raining, a colleague has sent a passive-aggressive email and your coffee went cold while you read it. A Stoic philosopher would note, calmly, that almost none of this is up to you. Then they would ask what is.

Who was Epictetus?

Epictetus was a Greek-speaking Stoic philosopher. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he was born some time in the 50s CE, spent part of his life enslaved in Rome, later gained his freedom and taught philosophy, and after philosophers were expelled from Rome he founded a school at Nicopolis in western Greece, where he taught until his death around 135 CE. He didn't write his teaching down himself, as far as we know: the Discourses were written up by Arrian of Nicomedia, and the shorter Handbook (or Enchiridion) is an abridgement of them.

The idea in plain words

The Handbook opens with the distinction. In the Elizabeth Carter translation hosted by MIT's Internet Classics Archive, the things within our control are our opinions, what we pursue, what we desire and avoid, and our own actions. The things outside it include our body, property, reputation, positions of command, and in general anything that isn't our own doing.

The Stanford entry describes the same idea through what Epictetus called our faculty of choice: our judgements and decisions are truly ours, while external things are not.

The modern summary is simple. Some things you can steer: how you respond, what you do next, what you make of what happened. Some things you can't: the weather, traffic, other people's moods, the result. Distress tends to come from treating the second group as if it were the first.

Applying it to a bad morning

Run the morning through two columns.

Not up to me:

• The bus is late.
• It's raining.
• My colleague's tone.
• Whether the meeting goes well.

Up to me:

• Leaving a few minutes earlier tomorrow.
• Taking the umbrella and the better coat.
• How I reply to the email, and when.
• How well I prepare for the meeting.
• Whether I let the email ruin the coffee.

Notice how the second column is all actions and choices. That's the point. Worry about the first column changes nothing; effort on the second changes quite a lot.

It's not about not caring

A common misreading is that Stoics shrug at everything. Not so. You can care deeply about the outcome of a match, a job interview or a friend's exam. The dichotomy only asks you to put your energy where it can do something: your training, your preparation, your support. Then accept that the result has other inputs.

We find it useful to add a middle ground: things you can influence but not control, like how a race goes or whether you get the job. A handy way to handle them is to aim at your part of the process (prepare well, run your own race) rather than tying your peace of mind to the result.

Try it for a week

• When something annoys you, ask: is this up to me? If no, note it and let it pass. If yes, decide one thing to do.
• Set process goals, not just outcome goals: "practise twice a week" rather than only "win the tournament".
• End the day with a quick review: what did I handle well, what would I do differently, and what was never mine to fix?

For the bigger cousin of this idea, dealing with not knowing how things will turn out, see getting more comfortable with uncertainty.