“Stoicism reminds us that beneficial, sustained improvement tends to grow incrementally. ”

Epictetus’ wisdom

An unexpected email from a stranger showed up in my inbox this week. It was from a gentleman who wanted to thank me for writing The Art of Living, an interpretation of the teachings of Epictetus. He said the book changed his life, because Epictetus’ wisdom helped him overcome debilitating depression. He further claimed that if he ever feels like he is backsliding into depression’s clutches, all he has to do is read the book’s first page and his mind is restored to health.

Fascinated, I went back and read that page, which is an explanation of Stoicism’s cardinal principle, know what you can control and what you can’t. How can this apparently simple idea help a person avert depression? Certainly countless sufferers of this malady know it to be an intractable problem. And, to be sure, this mental illness presents in widely varying forms, depths, and levels of medical severity. Depression is real and it can be fatal, so this is not a facile proposition for a cure.

Still, since the email writer found so much remedial value for managing his own depression by taking to heart the injunction to separate what we can control from what we can’t and acting accordingly, I was inspired to reconsider the wisdom and efficacy of this central Stoic idea.

Depression mutes our feelings of agency

Among other things depression takes away or mutes are our feelings of agency, our faith in the future, our faith in ourselves, the ability to concentrate, our motivation, our sense of meaning or purpose, our positive self regard, our enthusiasm, and our energy. It renders our minds desolate and stuck.

Stoicism reminds us that beneficial, sustained improvement tends to grow incrementally. We pivot back to health and wholeness through dinky, often imperceptible successive positive changes in our attitudes, speech, and actions.

Taking a serious inventory

When we take a serious inventory of what we can control and what we can’t control in our lives as a whole or within a particular circumstance we realize how really little we control. At first this realization could be dispiriting. But, if we stick with our inquiry, we begin to see what we do control, and however comparatively small this domain is compared to that which we can’t, it is mighty. Our sense of agency, the feeling that we are not merely victims of outward circumstance, but active shapers of our own destinies, returns. This is the dawning of a shift from a depressive stance to an expressive

Training our attention

The next step is training our attention, thence our words and action on this actionable part of our experience. When we take ownership of the things over which we do have control we start to do the small, successive things that yield a positive difference. And lo and behold, we begin to see the multiplying effect of these small helpful, life-affirming corrections. A new life narrative begins to emerge. We stop feeling so alone as our sense of connection to others strengthens. And, one day we notice, the rust is out of our gears and the wind is at our back.

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Sharon Lebell is the author of The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness, the first modern interpretation of Epictetus’ teachings. She tweets @SharonLebell.

 

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