do not seek to have everything that happens happen…
Page 113 do not seek to have everything that happens happen to you as you wish but wish for everything to happen as it actually does happen and your will be serene .
— from Takeoff Into Chaos · How to Live by Sarah Bakewell
In the book
The mindset is everything, and it rests on a single hinge: you cannot control what happens in the sky, but you can always control your response to it — and that conscious choice is the most empowering resource a human being possesses. Epictetus reduced it to a kind of serenity formula: do not demand that things happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do, and you will fly calm. Each time you choose to trust yourself and act, you can never be certain how it will turn out — sometimes you are vindicated, sometimes disillusioned — and you take off anyway. — Takeoff Into Chaos
Organize your expectations before a hard meeting the way an emergency doctor triages — most likely case, worst case, what you'll do either way. And take Epictetus's harder counsel when you can: do not demand that things happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do. Keep an honest logbook, and design your endings. Since memory weights the peak and the end far above the middle, end things well on purpose — a hard day, a visit, a project — because the ending is what you will actually keep. — The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)