What things we ought to despise, and what things we ought to value

The difficulties of all men are about external things, their
helplessness is about externals. "What shall I do, how will it be, how
will it turn out, will this happen, will that?" All these are the
words of those who are turning themselves to things which are not
within the power of the will. For who says, "How shall I not assent to
that which is false? how shall I not turn away from the truth?" If a
man be of such a good disposition as to be anxious about these things,
I will remind him of this: "Why are you anxious? The thing is in
your own power: be assured: do not be precipitate in assenting
before you apply the natural rule." On the other side, if a man is
anxious about desire, lest it fail in its purpose and miss its end,
and with respect to the avoidance of things, lest he should fall
into that which he would avoid, I will first kiss him, because he
throws away the things about which others are in a flutter, and
their fears, and employs his thoughts about his own affairs and his
own condition. Then I shall say to him: "If you do not choose to
desire that which you will fall to obtain nor to attempt to avoid that
into which you will fall, desire nothing which belongs to others,
nor try to avoid any of the things which are not in your power. If you
do not observe this rule, you must of necessity fall in your desires
and fall into that which you would avoid. What is the difficulty here?
where is there room for the words, 'How will it be?' and 'How will
it turn out?' and, 'Will this happen or that?'
Now is not that which will happen independent of the will? "Yes."
And the nature of good and of evil, is it not in the things which
are within the power of the will? "Yes." Is it in your power, then, to
treat according to nature everything which happens? Can any person
hinder you? "No man." No longer then say to me, "How will it be?"
For however it may be, you will dispose of it well, and the result
to you will be a fortunate one. What would Hercules have been if he
had said, "How shall a great lion not appear to me, or a great boar,
or savage men?" And what do you care for that? If a great boar appear,
you will fight a greater fight: if bad men appear, you relieve the
earth of the bad. "Suppose, then, that I may lose my life in this
way." You will die a good man, doing a noble act. For since we must
certainly die, of necessity a man must be found doing something,
either following the employment of a husbandman, or digging, or
trading, or serving in a consulship or suffering from indigestion or
from diarrhea. What then do you wish to be doing, when you are found
by death? I for my part would wish to be found doing something which
belongs to a man, beneficent, suitable to the general interest, noble.
But if I cannot be found doing things so great, I would be found doing
at least that which I cannot be hindered from doing, that which is
permitted me to do, correcting, myself, cultivating the faculty
which makes use of appearances, labouring at freedom from the affects,
rendering to the relations of life their due; if I succeed so far,
also touching on the third topic, safety in the forming judgements