溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Do I Distinguish What Is Mine from What Is Not?
What is in my power and what is not — on which side lie body, property, and reputation, and do I know the line?
Of things, some are within our power, and some are not.
The distinction of "what is and is not in my power" is the cornerstone of Stoic ethics and a long-running lineage. Epictetus made it the key to freedom, and Aurelius, from an emperor's seat, governed himself by the same principle. This insight ran into later psychotherapy, revived as the "serenity prayer" that divides what cannot be changed from what can. Yet counters arose. Existentialism held that the human, though thrown into a situation, makes itself by responding to it, bearing responsibility even for what lies beyond control. Is freedom a withdrawal to the controllable, or a response even to the uncontrollable? The lineage split.
The more an age pours uncontrollable news and comparison into our hands, the more this question — dividing what is and is not in my power — becomes the first boundary that guards the mind.
Born a slave and left lame, the philosopher Epictetus gave the first sentence of his Handbook to this distinction.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Born a slave and left lame, the philosopher Epictetus gave the first sentence of his Handbook to this distinction. Within our power are opinion, impulse, and desire — the movements of the mind alone; body, property, and reputation are not within our power. That severe recognition, that not even the body is fully mine, was for him a doorway to freedom. I read this question as aimed at the illusion of control. Do I pour my heart into what cannot be helped and suffer, while missing what I actually can do? I stand before this line, and this question.
✍️Your Answer
The lineage of the ancients ends here. Now it is your turn before the question. There is no right answer — only how you, today, would answer.
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This is not a museum of answers but a lineage of questions. All sources are public-domain texts; the lineage and reflection are 100% original ONGO content.
