You may encounter a quote from Epictetus on the Internet: “Freedom is not attained through the satisfaction of desires, but through the suppression of desires.”
This sentence does not appear in the Stoic's original writings, but it has the merit of summarizing Epictetus' thought.
The discipline
of desire.
The choice of the word discipline is interesting because it implies rigor, while desire evokes almost the exact opposite. Don't we often say, "succumb to your desires"?
In the Stoic world, you can't separate the two. There can be no happiness if you are not in control of your desires. Therefore, if you want to be happy, you have to discipline yourself.
That is the stark reality:
People are unhappy
because they desire things
that they consider goods
and that they are in danger of losing.
People are unhappy
because they seek to escape
from things they perceive as troubles.
The only way to free yourself from delusion, fear and sadness is to renounce these desires and aversions and want only what depends on you: a sound mind, right actions, doing the best at every moment.
This renunciation isn't natural, and yet you can practice disciplining your desires and aversions.
But then you may ask yourself, {{username}}, does this mean that you shouldn't fall in love for fear of the suffering that a possible breakup might cause? Or that you shouldn't tackle a project for fear of the feeling of failure if it doesn't work out?
No.
The answer is simple: as with so many things in life, the answer lies in balance, moderation, and detachment from expected outcomes. Commit fully to a relationship to give it a chance to succeed, but love with balance and moderation. Be passionate in the moment, but don't let your passion get out of control. Commit yourself fully to a project, but accept its ups and downs, its indeterminate course, its successes and setbacks. Otherwise said, its particular providence, its accidental consequences as we’ve seen at the beginning of the program.
After having learned how to discipline your judgment {{username}}, learn now to discipline your desires.
To discipline those deisres,
according to the Stoics, there is only one rule: don't wish for anything. Accept your fate, accept every event that presents itself to you, happy or unhappy, as if Nature itself, omnipotent in its immeasurable and inexorable course, had willed it for you, and to which you'll adhere: “I have now what Universal Nature wills me to have, and I do what my own nature wills me to do.” 1
Refuse to desire anything other than what nature has provided. Nature has its own laws, its own method. To find inalienable peace of mind, you must abide by your own nature.
I'll end this piece on the discipline of desire with a reformulation from Pascal: "Thus we never actually live, but hope to live." 2
By longing for a happier tomorrow, hoping and wishing for what we don't yet have, we're missing out on our lives; perhaps we should desire a little less and be a little more content with what we already have.
So, {{username}}, the discipline of desire teaches us this profound truth: the more we tie our happiness to external things—things we might gain or lose—the more we allow ourselves to be enslaved by uncertainty and disappointment. true freedom comes not from suppressing our ability to care or act, but from learning to desire wisely.
To desire wisely is to align your will with nature. It is to find satisfaction in the present moment, to embrace the flow of life without resistance, and to understand that fulfillment lies not in wishing for more but in appreciating what is already yours.
Pascal’s observation reminds us of the Stoic wisdom:
life
is
happening
now.
By placing all our hopes in an imagined future or fretting over desires unfulfilled, we risk losing what we already have—this very moment.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the discipline of desire is this: don’t waste your life longing for what could be. Live fully in what is.