Enchiridion 10: Don't Be Swept Away

"With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it. If you see an attractive person, you will find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire. If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances of things will not hurry you away along with them." (Epictetus, Enchiridion 10)

Make use of every opportunity. Our "knee-jerk" reactions gets us in trouble, acting as animals, instinctively, to the environment. Someone attractive crosses your path and you linger with a longer look. But you don't have to. People are attractive, but that does not mean you must let go the floodgates of desire. There is no personal strength in permitting the chemicals run free.

Someone is mean so you are mean right back, without hesitation. But you don't have to.

Sudden onset pain causes you to jump and shout obscenity. But you don't have to.

You are better than that.
You are more than the body, more than feelings.

Don't lower yourself to the level of someone who caught you off-guard. Pain hurts, but suffer in silence as much as possible. How you respond may be reflexive, but it's reactionary. Again, you are more than a body. The way you handle pain may affect others around you but it could also expose a character flaw to be corrected.

Pleasant language is preferred, but many don't use it. Exercise patience. This does not necessarily mean to "turn the other cheek," though some use language for the purpose of offending. Patience is still a virtue but the offender could use some instruction. A young woman was spouting obscenity just to be heard, so I said to her in front of her friends, "excuse me, but there are women and children present." She was stunned, her friends were stunned and looked at me, back at her, back at me--and she shut up. There was no reason for obscenity except to expose what kind of person she was.

The core of the lesson is this: don't be swept away in the moment. Stand your ground and see what opportunities present themselves in the moment. Back to lesson one: control what is within your power: you. The lessons learned here may pay off in a very serious, more intense moment in the future.