Epictetus was born a slave. He owned nothing. Yet centuries later, emperors studied his words to learn what freedom really meant.
His philosophy can be reduced to a simple exercise: divide everything into two piles.
What you control: your thoughts, choices, actions and responses. What you don't: other people, outcomes, opinions, luck, the past, and most of the future.
Most anxiety comes from confusing the two. We spend our lives trying to control what was never ours, while neglecting what always was.
Suffering lives in pile two. Peace lives in pile one.