The Enchiridion   

10. With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for
making a proper use of it. If you see an attractive person, you will
find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire.
If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant
language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances
of things will not hurry you away along with them.
11. Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned
it." Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is
returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise
returned? "But he who took it away is a bad man." What difference
is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives
it to you to possess, take care of it; but don't view it as your own,
just as travelers view a hotel.
12. If you want to improve, reject such reasonings as these: "If I
neglect my affairs, I'll have no income; if I don't correct my servant,
he will be bad." For it is better to die with hunger, exempt from
grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation; and it
is better your servant should be bad, than you unhappy.
Begin therefore from little things. Is a little oil spilt? A little
wine stolen? Say to yourself, "This is the price paid for apathy,
for tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing." When you
call your servant, it is possible that he may not come; or, if he
does, he may not do what you want. But he is by no means of such importance
that it should be in his power to give you any disturbance.
13. If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid
with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything;
and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust
yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice
in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external
things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity
neglect the other.
14. If you wish your children, and your wife, and your friends to
live for ever, you are stupid; for you wish to be in control of things
which you cannot, you wish for things that belong to others to be
your own. So likewise, if you wish your servant to be without fault,
you are a fool; for you wish vice not to be vice," but something else.
But, if you wish to have your desires undisappointed, this is in your
own control. Exercise, therefore, what is in your control. He is the
master of every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever
that person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever, then, would
be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing, which depends
on others else he must necessarily be a slave.
15. Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is
anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share
with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don't stop it. Is it not yet
come? Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches
you. Do this with regard to children, to a wife, to public posts,
to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy partner of the feasts
of the gods. And if you don't even take the things which are set before
you, but are able even to reject them, then you will not only be a