Some things are up to us, and others are not.

Where this comes from

Epictetus was born enslaved and became a famous teacher in Greece about 1,900 years ago. His student Arrian wrote his lessons down, and this is the first line of the handbook he made from them. Much of what Epictetus taught starts here.

How you could say it to a five-year-old

“You can’t make the bus come. You can pick what we sing while we wait.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 1. We put these lines into plain English ourselves, staying close to the original and to public-domain translations.