 Okay, so in today's video I'm going to be talking about a very important stoic concept which has influenced me greatly and has helped many people that have shown this to in life and that is this idea of the decorum of control as proposed by Epictetus. But before I get into that let me let me tell you guys a story. So I used to study these exams, I used to study my ass off of these exams so naturally in these exams I'll be stressed out as I was writing and then the bell ring the exams over I have to put my pen down. Now the problem arose when I had to wait for the results. We had to wait three weeks to see our results to see how well we did. If we failed we would have to do the subject again, pay something like a thousand dollars for the course and it would just be hell. So during these three weeks during the holiday break before we got results I used to stress out I used to be miserable every day I'll be thinking about the outcome thinking about the exam and brought a lot of negativity in my life a lot of clutter to my mind. Now this carried on until I understood this topic of dichotomy of control, this concept dichotomy of control. Now basically the dichotomy control is being able to distinguish what is within our control and what is not within our control and focusing only on what is in our control. Now Epictetus writes in his opening lines of his handbook The Incaridian. Some things are in our control and others are not. Things in our control our opinion, pursuit, desire, a version and in a word whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control our body, property, reputation, command and in a word whatever are not our actions. Basically Epictetus is saying we need to focus on what we have influence over. So for me as I finished that exam my influence on that exam was over. There is no point on focusing on that and envisioning the future. I should have focused on other things and enjoyed my time because I did all I could until the results came out. In the same way that people that are in a rush to get to a certain location will get stopped by red light and it will get frustrated and angry and will remove that piece of my life because the red light. The red light is not in your control. That is something outside of your control so you shouldn't focus on that. Remember when you were a kid you probably wanted to fly. You probably wanted to jump into the sky and fly. Maybe you still want to do that but you understood very quickly that what's stopping you from being able to do that is gravity which pulls you to the ground. Now gravity is something that's not within your control so you've accepted this fact and forgot about your dreams about flying. So why then do you still have trouble accepting this fact in other areas of your life? Perhaps it's because other things in life are not as easily understood as fundamental laws such as gravity. Always ask yourself is this in my control? Is there something I can do about this? If not disregard it. If you can do the action. There are a few things that people always always worry too much about that are not in their control. One is trying to please everybody. Trying to make everybody like you. That is definitely not within your control. Regardless of how charismatic you are, how funny you are, how good-looking you are, how nice you are to everybody. Not everyone's gonna like you. So a good mentality to have is to disregard that as a goal. Instead focus your goal on something that is in your control. Be more likeable. Having those characteristics that we talked about. Be more charismatic. Be perhaps more funny. Be more kind. That's within your control and that's something you can focus. Not the result. The result will come as a by-product of you focusing on what's in your control. Another area that people always beat themselves down over is their genetic gifts. Some people are born 6 feet 5. Some people are born 5 foot 5. A lot of guys I see are always stressing about their height. They're always stressing about how they're too short and how it would be better if they were better. Being short is not in your control. That is what you're born with. So the quicker you can accept that the better. Being 6 foot 5 is not within your control. The quicker you can accept how tall you are the better. Don't worry about these things. Worry about what you can do. Worry about how those genetic gifts can help you. Worry about how you can overcome certain adversities. Don't worry about the adversity if you can't do anything about it. If you have a disability don't worry about the disability because there's nothing you can do about it. Sure you can feel sorry for yourself but that's not your control. It's feeling sorry for yourself gonna make you happier or is seeing what you can do and taking that route gonna make you happy. Human beings will like control. Once you focus on what you can control you'll be far happier than what you are. Now this concept is really good in regards to goal-setting and this is how you apply the dichotomy of control into goal setting. A lot of people kind of mistake this dichotomy of control into taking kind of a passive approach to life. When in reality it still is a very active approach because you're seeing what you can do and you're going in that direction so you're being more effective. When you're setting the goal let's say you're playing the game of tennis as is a famous example. Instead of focusing on the end outcome of winning the game which is not in your control. For all you know the person you're playing against could have been practicing for 10 years and is really good and will just whoop your ass. Focus instead on playing to the best of your ability. Focus on what you can do because those things are in your control or let's say you want to see at a bar and you want to talk to this girl you want to go up and talk to this girl right you want to say hi how's going. Her being receptive to you is not fully in your control. Regardless of how good looking you are regardless of how good you smell how nice you were at approaching her she could just chuck some blood in your face. In conclusion many things are not within our control but a few things are and those things are what we need to focus on. Those two things are our actions and our response to events. If we can master these things we can master life itself.