Commentary

This is the sentence that inspired modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Albert Ellis cited Epictetus directly when developing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in the 1950s. The logic is simple but revolutionary: events are neutral; it is our interpretation — our dogma — that generates emotional response. Grief, rage, and anxiety are not produced by loss, rudeness, or uncertainty; they are produced by what we tell ourselves those things mean. Change the story; change the feeling. Epictetus knew this two millennia before the DSM.