How to be free …

… Virtue as Its Own Reward - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

“No man is free unless he is master of himself,” claims Epictetus, and self-mastery comes through will. We must will what is right for us, and will the avoidance of what is not. Will is strengthened through accurate observation of appearances. Will operates only on those things within our power. “In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion…; and in a word, whatever are our own acts; not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices…, and in a word, whatever are not our own acts.” This distinction anticipates Reinhold Niebuhr’s serenity prayer, later adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous: “O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, / The courage to change what can be changed, / and the wisdom to know the one from the other.”