Epictetus â Enchiridion, Chapter 1:
âSome things are up to us and some are not. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversionsâin short, whatever is our own doing.
Our bodies are not up to us, nor our possessions, our reputations, or our public officesâor, that is, whatever is not our own doing.
The things that are up to us are by nature free, unhindered, and unconstrained, while those that are not up to us are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own.
Remember, then, that if you take what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be your own, yo