There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying

The philosopher Epictetus, born a slave and yet freer than most kings, once spoke the timeless words: “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” These words, like a flame preserved through centuries, illuminate the heart of Stoic wisdom—that peace and happiness do not come from the world around us, but from how we meet that world within ourselves. Epictetus, who lived through hardship, servitude, and exile, learned that true strength is not found in controlling fate, but in mastering one’s own mind.

The origin of this teaching lies in the Stoic philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome, a discipline of the soul that taught men to live in harmony with reason and nature. For the Stoics, life was a storm that could not be stilled, but one could learn to steer through it with calm and dignity. Epictetus taught that there are two realms in existence: the realm of what we can control—our thoughts, choices, and actions—and the realm of what we cannot—fortune, reputation, other people, even the hour of our death. To seek to command what is beyond us is to invite misery. To focus only on what lies within our will is to find freedom.

When he said, “cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will,” Epictetus was not calling for indifference, but for clarity. He knew that much of human suffering springs from confusion—when men waste their lives raging at the wind, lamenting what cannot be changed, or craving what cannot be kept. Worry, he taught, is a chain that binds the spirit to illusions. But when we release what is not ours to control, our soul rises, unburdened, to the realm of peace. This is not surrender, but mastery—the mastery of self over chaos.

Consider the story of Admiral James Stockdale, a modern disciple of Stoicism, who survived seven years of captivity and