In the first century AD, few would have argued that Epictetus was the most powerful person in Rome. Few would have argued that this lowly slave possessed any power at all–in fact, the name said it all: Epictetus means acquired one.

Yet what philosophy helped Epictetus come to understand was that it was actually Nero and the other ‘powerful’ men and women of the time who were the slaves. They were the ones who had been acquired–by ambition, by desire, by aversions, by insecurities, by money, by fame. All of us were born with freedom of choice, Epictetus came to see, but many of us relinquish this power in favor of much more superficial things. Or we so wallow in our unfortunate circumstances, our lack of freedom, that we fail to see where we do have choices, where we do have agency. Enslavement, the horrible torture that Epictetus went, the lifelong disability that followed it, none of that actually inhibited the inherent power that each of us has.

“Did you injure your mind?” the father says to young Epictetus in The Girl Who Would Be Free. “No,” Epictetus replies. “Was your soul hurt?” No, again. “Was your sense of right and wrong affected?” No. “I need you to focus more on who controls the empire between your ears,” comes the Stoic wisdom, “and less on what happened to your leg.” Later, in the book, Marcus Aurelius offers to grant poor little Epictetus any favor they’d like…but there’s nothing the king can possibly do. Epictetus is already perfectly free and all powerful.

Most of us are born into this world closer in status to Epictetus than Marcus Aurelius. We are more lowly than we are exalted. Yet each of us, as Seneca said, has access to the greatest empire, ruling over ourselves. Will we seize this kingdom? Or will we trade it away for superficial, shiny things? We free ourselves through our freedom of choice, or will we hand that freedom over to the mob, to our urges, to our fears?

That’s the question of your life right there. Answer it right.