The Price of Inner Peace — The Enchiridion

If you would improve, Epictetus says, lay aside reasonings like these: if I neglect my affairs I shall not have a maintenance; if I do not punish my servant he will be good for nothing. Those trade-offs sound practical. He rejects them.

Better to die of hunger, exempt from grief and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation. Better that your servant should be bad than you unhappy. Inner peace outranks the control you think security requires.

Begin with little things. Spilled oil, stolen wine: say this is the price paid for peace and tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing. When you call your servant, he may not come or may not obey. It should not be in his power to cause you any disturbance. That surrender of leverage is the point.