Daily Meditations · Tuesday, August 25, 2026
On the body's terms
"Sickness is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses." — Epictetus, Enchiridion, 9
The line answers a specific confusion Epictetus kept meeting in his students: the assumption that a failing body must mean a failing life. He is drawing a border. The body is among the things he calls "not in our power": it can be seized by illness, aged, broken, and no amount of resolve reverses that. What remains ours is the response, the judgment, the choice of how to bear it. The sentence is a correction, not a comfort. It does not promise that willpower cures anything. It says the will governs a smaller territory than we wish, and that this territory is the only one worth defending.
This week the singer Bret Michaels canceled the rest of his 2026 tour after doctors pulled him off the road to recover from recent surgery. He returned to the stage following the operation, but soon after the show it was apparent that he hadn't fully healed. In his own words, he may have chosen to go back sooner than he should have. The will can insist on the show. The body still sets the terms.
Where in your life are you spending will trying to override a limit that will only yield to rest?
Source: rollingstone.com →
