Lately, more and more people are asking for a short definition of Stoicism, and it is being summed up as “recognizing what is under our control and what is not.” What is being referenced is a portion of the ancient Stoic Epictetus’s student Arian’s notes. The Greek is ἐφ’ ἡμῖν. Or, “What is up to us.” If we expand a bit: “What lies within our agency.”
But “recognize what is up to us” was never meant to work as a summary of Stoic ethics, and it doesn’t. It offers no way to distinguish Stoicism from any other life philosophy. For example, summarizing Stoicism that way makes it hard to distinguish it from Mel Robbins’s Let Them theory, which is obviously appealing to people who recognize that their problem is trying to control situations they shouldn’t. But that is hardly all of us! (And Robbins definitely did not have Stoicism in mind when she wrote her book.)
What lies within our agency?
Stoicism’s account of agency involves, as scholars have painstakingly retrieved and beautifully explained, an account of rationality and moral development. To follow Stoicism, you have to agree with their claims about these. It is also one of the eudaimonist theories, philosophical accounts that argue that happiness is what characterizes a distinctly human life. If it were to be summed up as quick advice, it should not be “let them” but “become virtuous.” (“Be happy” would lead to too much confusion over what the right account of happiness is.)
Eudaimonist accounts do offer means to warn us against approaches to living that surely do not work. Pursue something other than virtue, like fame, power, money, and you will never be satisfied but end up hungrier for more. Something catchy might help remind us of that. But a reminder for us not to take unwarranted control is not so generally applicable. Most of us would do better to take more control of the situations around us. Stoicism is a great spur to us thinking of what we could do that we don’t. And if you think in Stoic terms of justice, our duties to others are hardly realized in even our imaginations.
The Stoic emphasis is on living up to our duties, which distinguishes it from other theories of happiness and gives it its precision. If we are going to invoke a catchy slogan, we could be reminding ourselves to make something moral of our duties.
Because if we do not recognize our duties as wives, friends, mothers, children, citizens, and neighbors, and instead look to what we can control or have power over, won’t we be looking around endlessly, assessing situation after situation without virtue even in mind? We’d be scanning these situations to see when our efforts are worth it, working with no standard for what counts as worth it. And then we are not using the thing Stoicism is designed to give us.
Instead of “control only what you can” or “let them,” try “become virtuous.” Our focus then could be maintained on what counts as moral.
Imagine how helpful we could be to one another with this.