Epictetus pictured life like a voyage: you can tend your own conduct, but the winds and the sea aren't yours to command. So much of what weighs on us is exactly this, other people's choices, outcomes we can't force, futures we can't see. We carry it all anyway, as if worry were a kind of control. It isn't. You can prepare, you can do your part, and then you have to set the rest down, because gripping it only tires you for the part that's actually yours. Putting down what isn't yours isn't giving up. It's freeing your hands for the work you can actually do.

Inspired by the old idea of dichotomy of control. Written by Ugo Charles.