14. Turn Your Wish the Right Way

The wish to hold everything steady is an old human wish. Epictetus names it plainly, then turns your wish the right way.

If you wish your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, you are foolish. You are wishing that what is not in your power should be in your power, and that what belongs to others should belong to you.

In the same way, if you wish your servant to be without fault, you are a fool. You are wishing that wrongdoing should not be wrongdoing, but something else.

If you wish to have your desires not disappointed, that is in your own power.

Train yourself in what is in your power.

The one who has power over any other person is the one who can grant or take away what that person wants.

Whoever would be free, then, let him not wish for anything or turn away from anything that depends on others.

If he does, he will have to be a slave.

What this means. Wanting others to change so you can feel safe is a trap. Work only on what is yours, and you cannot be owned.