The Discipline of Assent
This week you're learning the Discipline of Assent. In Greek, the practice Epictetus calls the right use of *phantasiai* (mental impressions) and *synkatathesis* (assent), which simply means the conscious YES or NO you give to every thought, urge, or feeling before it becomes an action or a belief. Most of us live as though our reactions are automatic and inevitable; the Stoics discovered they aren't. Between every impression that hits your mind and everything you do or feel next, there is a pause, and in that pause lives your freedom. This week, you'll learn to find that pause, widen it, and use it to stop anger (and other reactive emotions) before they take hold.
Passage
If it is not right, don't do it: if it is not true, don't say it. Let your impulse be to see always and entirely what precisely it is which is creating an impression in your imagination, and to open it up by dividing it into cause, matter, relation, and into the period within which it will be bound to have ceased.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XII.17
Reflection
Marcus gives the discipline of assent its sharpest practical edge: *divide the impression*. When something provokes you, don't just pause, actively dissect what is creating the impression. What is its cause? What is it actually made of? What is its relationship to you? How long will it last? Anger feeds on impressions left whole and unexamined, they feel solid, urgent, and personal. When you break them into their parts, they often lose their grip. A harsh remark becomes: *a person under stress, choosing particular words, in a moment that will be gone by tomorrow*. The impression hasn't changed, but your assent to its power has.
Go deeper
Take something that is provoking you right now. What happens to its emotional charge when you honestly examine its cause, its actual substance, its relationship to you, and how long it will last?
Practice
Divide the Impression
Take 8 minutes. Choose one thing currently bothering you. In writing, answer these four questions about it: (1) What is the cause, what chain of events actually produced this? (2) What is the matter, what is it literally made of, stripped of the story? (3) What is the relation, how does it actually connect to you and your core values? (4) When will it cease, realistically, in days, months, or years? Read your answers back slowly.