LEVIS

Some people seem to walk through life more lightly than others. Less does not happen to them. They lose jobs, fall ill and have difficult families like everyone else. They just do not seem to carry it all at once.

Epictetus knew something about weight. He was born a slave, walked with a limp for most of his life, and was later banished from Rome along with the other philosophers. His teaching begins with one plain sentence: some things are within our power, and some are not. Our judgements, our effort and our choices are ours. The weather, other people's opinions, the past and most of the future are not.

It sounds almost too simple. In practice it is the work of a lifetime. Every day brings things we try to carry that were never ours to hold: what someone thought of our email, a traffic jam, a decision made in another country.

Putting those down does not mean we stop caring. Often we let go precisely because we care, and because we need our hands free for the things we can actually change.

The lightest things travel furthest.

Think of a dancer, or someone who swims well. Neither of them is fighting. The effort is there, but it goes only where it is useful. Everything else they let flow past.

It takes practice, and nobody manages it every day. Some evenings it is enough to put down one thing that was never yours to carry.