But What Is It That I Want?

When someone is filled with pride because he is able to understand and interpret the works of Chrysippus, say to yourself, ‘If Chrysippus hadn’t written in such an obscure style, this person wouldn’t have anything to pride himself on.’ But what is it that I want? To understand nature and to follow it.

What is it that I want? If we would sit with that question for a few moments, our own answers may surprise us. If I am honest, the first things that come to my mind are the usual desires every person would admit: the flourishing of my family, physical health, financial security, and career stability.

The Stoics would describe these ‘wants’ as preferred indifferents. Epictetus stated “Of things that exist, some are good, others bad, and others indifferent. Now the virtues and everything that partakes in them are good, the vices and everything that partakes in them are bad, while everything that lies between these is indifferent, that is to say, riches, health, life, death, pleasure, pain.”

Working with this as a new compass, in what direction should my ‘want’ proceed? I do not control a single thing on my previous list. If the last two years have taught us nothing else, our lives are precariously fragile. My ‘desires and aversions’ then must lie within that which is under my control. As Epictetus says many times “to understand nature and to follow it.” My judgments, choices, and rational response to anything that happens. Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself “Either pain affects the body (which is the body’s problem) or it affects the soul. But the soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquility. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.”

These ideas in mind, I revisit my previous question: what do I want? I am working on wanting the right things, that which can properly be called good. I want to be the kind of man my wife and children can learn from by word and deed. I want to face strength and weakness, health and illness, plenty and poverty with a sense of resolute serenity. Nothing that happens to me can fundamentally change me without my permission.

I want, like the reluctant emperor, to be like “A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up.”

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations (Modern Library) (p. 117). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Epictetus. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World’s Classics) . OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

Epictetus. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford World’s Classics) . OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations (Modern Library) (p. 130). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.