On the Teachings of Epictetus and the Paradox of Control: How to Live a Life Without Regrets

What we perceive as a fortunate event, maybe unfortunate; and what we think may be unfortunate, may as well become fortunate.?

This is a hard-to-digest idea: if there is no way to know the consequences of our actions, then how can we make the right choice? How can we claim we made the right shots at any given point and lived a life without regrets? It may be impossible to discern an answer to these questions, but as Seneca says,?we often suffer more in imagination, than in reality.?

The paradox of control explains that we are often controlled by what we attempt to control. We do our best to make something happen, and while left with a sense of insecurity about the future, we experience anxiety and frustration, as if the very thing we intended to make happen is controlling our state of mind and emotions. As a stoic philosopher, Epictetus encourages us to?Make the best use of what is in our power, and take the rest as it happens.?

In an outside world that is governed by numbers and trajectories, it would be much easier to give in to our cognitively biased and evolutionary distorted intuitions. Such subconscious mental processes are always in work to define the measures of happiness for us. What makes a happy person happy? This programming happens very early in our childhood: The portrait of a content individual, oftentimes pictured as a wealthy person or couple, smiling and satisfied with a purchase we have seen many times on commercial TV ads, is a subtle impulse to tickle our fancy. But we almost always do little to no attempt to actively realize, why we think of someone as happy, when we subconsciously do so. Yet, it is quite daunting to realize that often, what we have defined as?happiness generating?includes items that are in fact uncontrollable: as Epictetus puts it, your body, your property, reputation, command, and in one word,?whatever are not our own actions.?Instead, reframing measures of happiness on values or things that are in our control -as Epictetus says- our opinions, pursuit, desires, aversion, and in a word,?whatever are our own actions, will mentally and emotionally shield us from the adversities of the unknown future. Epictetus is an advocate of the idea that the way to happiness is to cease worrying about the things which are beyond the power of our will, and thus the way to avoid the paradox of control, is to avoid controlling the uncontrollable.?

Another deduction to stoicism and the paradox of control is how it enables us to counter?decision paralysis?while faced with the fears of the uncharted future. Easy decisions are easy to make because, in such scenarios, we use quantifiable values and measures that help us make the shots: it would be easy to say yes to a job offer that pays more or provides more paid-time-off. Difficult decisions in life- such as accepting a job offer that requires moving to a smaller town- are often hard to make, because we attempt to compare the variables of our available options by using the same tools of measurement. This is, however, a futile attempt: our brain is not designed to compare a “20% increase in salary” with “losing access to a lively neighborhood as a result of relocating to a small town”. While our unveiling attempts to define the universe of options around us by the same tools of measurement can lead to?decision fatigue, we can indeed repossess a more active role when faced with hard decisions.?

It is conceivable that the majority of the decisions we make in our lifetime will be easy. These decisions are easy to make because they are dictated by variables that are beyond our control, such as salary, reputation, etcetera, the same items that we perceive as?happiness generating. On the contrary, hard decisions are hard to make because we never truly process our active roles in our universe. The provoked anxiety and frustration result from being faced with a situation in which we are obliged to retrieve our genuine roles in the universe. As philosopher Ruth Chang puts it:?Any hard decision is in fact an opportunity to shine, and actively decide what kind of person you want to become. What are your true desires, aspirations, and values: the same internal things or items that per Epictetus, we have control over? Making decisions out of temptations to gain outside approval will compromise your integrity:?if you need a witness, be your own; and remember, it’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.?