Build your character using the control test

- [Narrator] I touched on this earlier, but the main tenet or cornerstone of Stoicism is this thing called the control test. So it's to work out what is in your control. And this is found in a text called the "Enchiridion," which is based on a series of lectures by Epictetus, a famous Roman Stoic who used to be a slave and then was freed and taught Stoicism. So his sense of the control test comes from a place of really having no agency for a large part of his life. He was also the son of a slave. But he could control his... You know, he could control his character, and that is what a lot of his writings emphasize. So Epictetus wrote in his handbook, which was published in 125 CE, "Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and in a word, whatever is our own doing. Not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and in a word, what is not of our own doing." So essentially I take that to mean our field of control consists of our actions and…