Why I quit smoking after reading Epictetus

By the time I picked up a slim volume of "The Discourses of Epictetus," I had been smoking for a couple of years.

- NIGHT OWL ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

Not socially. Not occasionally. I smoked in the way that defines identity — the kind of smoker who doesn’t ask if a break is coming but when. The pack-a-day kind. The stress, the habit, the illusion of control. Then, Epictetus, a crippled Greek slave-turned-philosopher, challenged everything I thought I was in control of.

It’s been 1.5 years since my last cigarette. I owe that decision — and the strength to stay with it — to Stoicism.

The myth of control

Epictetus opened with a simple idea: “Some things are up to us, and some things are not.” It sounds obvious. But when you start applying that filter to your own life, it’s staggering. What was smoking, if not a daily surrender to something outside myself — a chemical, a craving, a false comfort? I had always told myself I chose to smoke. Epictetus showed me I was only choosing to rationalize my enslavement.