It’d be nice to be head honcho. It would be cool to be the owner. It’d be nice to look out over a vast bit of territory and say, “This is all mine.”

This is the fantasy, this is the ambition that drives so many of us, that drove so many in the ancient world too. But as the Stoics noted, when we pursue power, control, or money, we end up neglecting what’s right in front of us.

Epictetus, who was a slave, looked around at Nero’s court and saw rich and famous men who were less free than he was. Because they spent all their energy trying to get more than what they had, because their happiness was tied up in what other people thought, because their fears were based on things that were not up to them. In The Girl Who Would Be Free (our fable based on the life of Epictetus), Epictetus’ father says that to be great, we first have to focus on “the empire between our ears.” He’s referring to our thoughts, our emotions, our urges, our desires, our fears…our own choices.

You have to understand that if we can rule this, then we are the head honcho, then we are the owner, then we do control an immense territory. We’re more powerful than many emperors, conquerors and billionaires. We’re as free as it’s possible to be.