Desire, Time, and Change
Don’t insist that what happens should happen as you wish; wish that things happen as they actually happen. Then your life will go well.
- Epictetus
The idea that one should desire that things be the way they actually are, that things happen the way they actually happen, is one of the most powerful tools I’ve come across in Stoicism, but also one of the most difficult to practice consistently. It’s also very easily misinterpreted, and is one to which I’ve had to apply some extra logical analysis in order to fully convince myself (and the imaginary skeptics who live inside my head) that it is a valid, logical and useful path towards well-being and happiness.
The simplest difficulty, and the one that is to me the easiest to deal with, is in remembering to invoke that attitude while enduring any kind of hardship or suffering, accepting the fact that given how everything in the universe has gone the way it has gone up to this moment in time, the current moment is inevitable. If you accept at all the idea that the present moment in time is the result of what has occurred in previous moments in time, to wish for things to be different in this moment is the same as wishing that the universe had developed differently in the past, going back to the beginning of time. And to the extent that wishing for things that you can’t have will cause you distress, anxiety or suffering, that is definitely a wish that will only lead to even more distress, anxiety or suffering, on top of whatever you are already experiencing.
The more subtle difficulty occurs when I think of how this idea could be misinterpreted as a form of either defeatism (“there’s nothing I can do about what’s happening, so don’t try to change it”) or of simply upholding the status quo (“I’m benefitting from what’s happening, so don’t try to change it”). But both of these misinterpretations are ignoring a couple of very important aspects of this advice, which are discussed in other contexts in Stoic literature, but which I haven’t seen applied directly to this idea of wanting things to be the way they are. Those aspects are time and change. And considering those two aspects in light of this idea leads to another potential form of practice that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere.
Both criticisms/misinterpretations that I mentioned above, defeatism and upholding the status quo, ignore the fact that the advice only applies to the present moment, this particular moment in time. In other words, desiring that things happen the way they do is not the same as desiring that things continue being the way they are now. It is an acceptance of how the past is inevitably shaping the present moment, but does not in any way imply any particular desire about the future.
This limiting of the advice to the present moment solves part of the problem with both misinterpretations, but there is something else that can be added to it in order to bring in other aspects of Stoic physics, and that is the inevitability of change, especially in the sense that Marcus Aurelius emphasizes. Everything is constantly changing, whether or not we want it to, so it seems that there is a logical corollary to the practice of desiring that things in the present moment be the way they are – the desire that things in the future be different from what they are in the present moment.
In my previous posts, starting with this one, I described the way that I like to categorize Stoic advice into a few different categories, depending on whether the advice is about:
- things (or experiences) we want vs. things we don’t want
- things we have vs. things we don’t have, and
- things within our control vs. things not in our control.
In this schema, the advice to desire that things be the way they are is a strategy most commonly used for dealing with things or experiences we have, which are not within our control, and which we don’t want, such as pain or sickness (although it can of course be theoretically applied to any category of experience).
This new idea (at least, new as far as I can tell), desiring that things change in the future, would apply most directly to things that we have that are not in our control, and to both things we want and things we don’t want:
Things we have, that are not in our control, that we want: for instance, a nice place to live, a partner or child you love, etc.
- This practice of wanting things to be different in the future is a more active (and radical) form of the advice often given to consider how anything you have that you want could be taken from you at any moment. This is usually done more passively, as in Epictetus’ description of thinking “Tomorrow you might die” while kissing your child, while this potentially new advice is not only more active but also not about a specific outcome in the future. More like, “I desire that tomorrow, my relationship with you will be different than it is right now.” Which is of course inevitable anyway, if you accept the idea of constant universal change.
What I find helpful about doing this more active practice in relation to things I have and want (as opposed to passively accepting that things will change) is that it even more strongly brings up the sensation of resistance in me to the idea that things will be different in the future, even when I thought that I had already taught myself that lesson through contemplation and meditation. It's like a gut-check to see how much I've really internalized that lesson.
Things we have, that are not in our control, that we don’t want: for instance, pain, ridicule, poverty, etc.
- In this case, this advice of actively wanting things to be different in the future is more obviously applicable, and is a way of strengthening the resolve to endure hardship. But again, not directed towards a specific outcome, such as getting out of pain or poverty, because what happens in the future is outside of your direct control. But it will inevitably change, one way or the other.
It is this idea of not only the inevitability of change, but also that change will occur in “one way or the other”, i.e. either in a way that you want or a way that you don’t want, that also seems to be the important aspect to this advice in both situations. And as with the advice to desire that things be the way they are now, regardless of whether you want them that way right now or not, it seems like another valid way of aligning yourself with the inevitable flow of cause and effect in the universe in a way that helps you avoid unnecessary distress.