look around in your life and make a little mental list of everything that's bothering you everything that seems bad everything that seems like it's having a negative impact on your life and happiness and realize how most of them or at certain points even all of them are external events that you have no control whatsoever or very limited control over and does it not seem like there's something wrong with saying that you can only be happy as external events as other people let you allow you to be happy shouldn't happiness be something that we have control
over shouldn't happiness be something that cannot be taken away from us otherwise even when we do have it even when we feel happy wouldn't we be constantly anxious and shouldn't we be constantly anxious in and in fear of losing it because we're not in control of it it's something that needs to be given to us and can at any point be taken away from us does this seem like a good way to live does this seem fair well actually the many Ang icient philosophers many ancient Greek philosophers would argue that no this is not fair
and in fact it's not the way it is and they would many people like to make it look like attaining happiness fulfillment and meaning in life is this complicated academic Pursuit that we can only achieve by years and years of study and professors telling us that we're doing a good job or not but it really is a simple Pursuit now it's not an easy Pursuit but it is a simple process and many have summarized the whole Endeavor in a few very simple sentences one of them I think which is most conducive to our discussion today
is simply summarized by saying philosophy or happiness is learning to be indifferent to indifferent things now let that sinking to learn to be indifferent to indifferent things Marcus orus demonstrates this by saying you toss a stone up in in the air nothing good on the way up nothing bad on the way down he says nothing is inherently good or bad thinking makes it so and it's true we we color our thoughts we color events outside external neutral events we call good or bad and consequently tie our happiness to these outside external events that we have
no control over that are not our doing and that we can't do anything about and that doesn't seem right that this should be the case that this should be how the world is it seems like a very dim and dark View and it is epicus the ancient stoic philosopher really said it well when he said there many forms of slavery the worst one being the self-imposed slavery and this is really true it's it's it is like slavery and it's the worst form because it doesn't have to be that way it's self-imposed we do it to
ourselves and we could free ourselves at any moment but we don't realize that we can we don't even realize that we are slaves in that way now does this mean that there's nothing good or bad that everything is just random that everything is indifferent that nothing means anything no this could not be further from the truth the very same people who say philosophy or happiness is learning to be indifferent to indifferent things such as Marcus Aurelius and epicus the ones we just mentioned they very much do believe that there's a good and a bad but
that every single thing that is good or bad is in our control and that we're fully responsible for it and that we are also fully in control of it for example um the way they would Define or categorize what is good or bad is what is morally good and morally bad because they say we are completely in control of our morals no one can force us to do something morally good or bad so uh simple prime example would be lying is something morally bad and honesty is something morally good and both to be honest and
to be dishonest is completely in our control no one can force us to tell a lie and certainly no one can force us to believe a lie these are all things that are within us and inherent and that we have control complete control over so these are idealistic things these are ideals but let's let's apply them in real life let's just take an event a big random um external event and apply it for example let's say an economic downturn happens and as businesses sometimes do they feel that they need to let go employees because they
anticipate not having the money to pay for their salaries and if such a thing happened to you if you were laid off because of such a reason has nothing to do with your performance has nothing to do with what you've done and what you're in control of is just the greater forces at work and it's one thing led to another and you need to be let go now you might say is it's not a bad thing but it's not a bad thing it's not a good thing either it's it's just is it's an indifferent and
this is exactly where and how we need to learn to be indifferent to indifferent things and as Marcus aelas also says what stands in the way becomes the way so you might see getting laid off as something bad as an obstacle to your happiness to your life but in the realm of things that are truly good and truly bad what can you do about this well what stands in the way becomes the way so an economic downturn losing your job seems like an obstacle how can we turn this into part of the way how can
we turn this to our advantage in the realm of things that are in our control take it from the realm of things that are out of our control and oppose it with something that is in our control now we need to learn if we weren't already frugality to be frugal to be better with our money to learn to cut unnecessary expenses and to become better at managing money frugality is something that even when we're rich we're going to need whether we're rich or poor it's always something that we want to have that we need to
have that will make our lives better for galile no matter what our life situation is is a positive is a good is an inherent good and it's something we are completely in control of you hear of many people who go through near-death experiences who be who become very very sick and are expected to die but somehow recover or like I said um are in a near-death experience but don't actually die and from then on they realize so-called what's what's really important in life and they start worrying less about things they can't control now you don't
need an experience like that to come to that realization for some people it helps but that realization is always there ready to be had and that's exactly precisely what we're talking about once we stop worrying about the things that are not in control and start worrying about the things that are in our control we become masters of our own happiness rather than giving that up and giving it to someone else to control it and this is what I want you to think about this week because if you ever wanted to be happy like we all
do if you ever wondered how some people can seem to live in the moment and enjoy the moment it's precisely because of this there will always always be these external events unexpected uncontrolled and uncontrollable which will happen in our lives and if we keep coloring them and assigning them good or bad values we will forever be pushed and pulled by ex by these external uncontrollable uncontrollable life experiences and of course you will never find the time to to see the beauty of a flower or the weather or your morning walk when you're constantly oppressed and
depressed by these uncontrollable external events that you have no say in whatsoever but if you start being indifferent to indifferent things and start being very much concerned about all the things that you do have full control over then you can do something about those things that you do have full control over while letting go of the worry and anxiety and panic of all the things that are happening that are not in your control there is no other way to happiness there's no other way to fulfillment than to learn what you can and what you cannot
control because once you know you truly know that something is not in your control you stop worrying about it and you start worrying about the things that are in your control because that is actually where your responsibility lies and no matter how good things are going for you in the outside external uncontrollable world if you don't take care of the things that you are responsible for that are fully in your control and you have no care for them you will never be happy regardless vice versa no matter how things are going in the outside world
if you do take care of the things that you can change to become as good as you can be and to stay away from all the things that you know are morally and inherently bad then you can be happy no matter what's going on this is what I wish for you this is what I want you to think about this week and I think that would greatly benefit you and to learn how to be indiff to indifferent things finally
