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Epictetus - "We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgements about them." · the Daily Quote - Positive Daily Inspiration and Motivational Quote of the Day

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  Dot com Welcome to the Daily quote, the podcast designed to
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  kick start your day in a positive way.
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  I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to
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  you by the Great News Podcast because we could all use some
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  great news. Link is in the show notes.
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  Today we have two quotes, separated by a century from two
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  men who could not have occupied more different positions in the
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  world, yet they arrived at exactly the same profound truth.
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  Our main quote of the day comes from Epictetus, born a slave in
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  ancient Rome, who studied philosophy in chains, earned his
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  freedom and went on to found one of the most respected schools of
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  Stoic thought in history. He once said we suffer not from
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  the events in our lives, but from our judgments about them.
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  And then a century later, the emperor Marcus Aurelius, ruler
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  of the most powerful empire on earth, who acknowledged
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  Epictacus as the central influence in his own thinking,
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  wrote in his Meditations. If you are distressed by
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  anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but
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  to your estimate of it. And this you have the power to
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  revoke at any moment a slave and an emperor, the same truth.
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  Think about what that convergence means.
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  One man had nothing, no freedom, no possessions, no power over
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  his own circumstances. The other had everything,
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  armies, an empire and absolute authority, and both arrived
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  independently at the same conclusion.
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  The source of suffering is not what happens to us, it is what
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  we tell ourselves about what happens to us.
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  Coming from these two men, it's a hard one.
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  Philosophical truth tested at both extremes of human
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  experience. Here's what they're pointing at.
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  Two people can face the identical event, a job loss, a
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  failed relationship, a plan that falls apart, and they can have
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  completely different experiences of it.
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  Not because the event was different, but because their
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  judgement of the event was different.
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  One calls it a catastrophe, the other calls it a redirection.
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  Same event, entirely different suffering.
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  For Epictacus, this was the cornerstone of all Stoic
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  philosophy that while external events are determined by
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  circumstances beyond our control, we always retain the
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  power to choose how we respond to them.
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  Good and evil live not in what happens, but in how we judge
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  what happens. And Marcus Aurelius adds the
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  most liberating word of all, Revoke.
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  You have the power to revoke your judgement at any moment.
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  The suffering isn't locked in the story you're telling
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  yourself about the event. You can change that story right
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  now, in this moment. What Epictetus and Marcus
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  Aurelius are offering isn't toxic positivity.
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  It's not pretending the bad thing didn't happen.
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  It's something far more powerful, the recognition that
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  the meaning of what happens is never fixed.
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  It belongs to you, and you can change it.
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  So here's the question. What are you currently suffering
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  from that might be more about your judgment of the event than
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  the event itself? Because if a man who ruled an
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  empire and a man born in chains both agree that the suffering is
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  not locked in, the judgement is yours and you have the power to
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  revoke it at any moment. That's it for today.
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  I'm Anna McGivern, signing off for now, but I'll be back
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  tomorrow. Same pod time, same pod station
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  with another daily quote.