What's Mine to Do
Inspired by Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca · The Enchiridion, Meditations and the Letters
The oldest version of this app's own rule: some things are up to you and some are not, and almost all the peace is in telling them apart. Every card here is inside your own power — what you judge, what you choose, what you do — and none of it depends on what the world sends back.
What is actually up to me?
I say the thing plainly, without the story around it, and name the part that is mine — what I judge, what I choose, what I do. The rest I name as not mine and leave there. When it stings, I look at what I told myself about it.
I do the part that is mine, properly, and hand the result over to how it goes — meeting what I did not choose without arguing with it.
Who am I before the day starts?
Before the day starts I picture the hard part of it and decide how I would want to meet it, naming who I am in that room before I walk in. The day begins with that rather than with the phone.
I begin it without telling anyone I am going to, do it properly, and let it go unmentioned.
What can I go without?
I pick the comfort before the day picks for me, and take the plain version or none at all — noticing what I would have missed, and that I am still fine.
How do I meet other people?
What am I spending my life on?
I count the hours it will actually take and ask whether I would pay that in money. Then I say no to one call on my time I would have refused if it had a price.