1. Self Mastery (enkrateia)
To acheive self mastery we should desire nothing but moral virtue. On the other side of the coin, moral evil is all we should seek to avoid. Anything beyond these two spheres is not up to us, and to worry about it is therefore a waste of our time.
We have grown to believe that our desires are a part of us, an extension of our identity, hence we are dissapointed when things don't turn out our way. You should be aware of your power to detach yourself from your desires by taking up a distance from them.
It is only by accepting that we can stand alone, self-sufficient, wanting nothing but to be good, that we free ourselves of dependence on things outside of us, which we believe we “need” to be happy.
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