# What Is the Matter on Which a Good Man Should Be Employed, and in What We Ought Chiefly to Practice Ourselves explained — Discourses > Chapter companion for Discourses by Epictetus. ## What happens The chapter argues that the proper material for a wise and good person is their own ruling faculty (prohairesis), not external things like the body or land. It emphasizes that the soul naturally assents to truth, desires good, and avoids evil, and that one must use appearances conformably to nature. The good is preferred over all relationships, and external things (like property or status) are indifferent. The chapter urges daily practice in applying the rule of what is within our will versus what is not, to eradicate false opinions and achieve firmness and constancy. ## Themes in this chapter ### Dichotomy of Control The chapter extensively distinguishes between things dependent on the will (the ruling faculty) and things independent (externals like property, office, death), urging the reader to focus only on what is within one's power. ### Desire and Aversion The soul's natural movement toward the good and away from evil is discussed, with the instruction to align desire and aversion only with what is within one's will. ## Character check-ins ### Zeus Mentioned as the one who has made the ruling faculty free from hindrance and compulsion, and who cannot eject one from the possession of virtue. ### Epictetus The speaker and teacher, who presents the doctrine of using appearances conformably to nature and practicing daily examination. ## Key lines > The material for the wise and good man is his own ruling faculty: and the body is the material for the physician and the aliptes (the man who oils persons); the land is the matter for the husbandman. The proper focus of a virtuous person is their own mind and choices, just as a doctor works on the body and a farmer works on the land. _This establishes the central metaphor of the chapter: each profession has its proper material, and for the good person, that material is the ruling faculty._ > When the good appears, it immediately attracts to itself; the evil repels from itself. But the soul will never reject the manifest appearance of the good, any more than persons will reject Caesar’s coin. Just as people accept Caesar's coinage without question, the soul instinctively accepts what appears good and rejects what appears evil. _Epictetus uses the analogy of currency to explain the soul's automatic response to apparent good and evil._ > If we practiced this and exercised ourselves in it daily from morning to night, something indeed would be done. But now we are forthwith caught half asleep by every appearance, and it is only, if ever, that in the school we are roused a little. If we trained ourselves constantly to examine appearances, we would make progress; instead, we are drowsy and only occasionally wake up in the classroom. _This emphasizes the need for continuous, practical exercise of Stoic principles, not just theoretical study._ > For what is weeping and lamenting? Opinion. What is bad fortune? Opinion. What is civil sedition, what is divided opinion, what is blame, what is accusation, what is impiety, what is trifling? All these things are opinions, and nothing more, and opinions about things independent of the will, as if they were good and bad. All emotional disturbances and social conflicts arise from mistaken judgments about external things, treating them as good or bad when they are actually indifferent. _This is a core Stoic claim: that our distress comes from our opinions, not from events themselves._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/discourses_se/chapters/iii-what-is-the-matter-on-which-a-good-man-should-be-employed-and-in-what-we-ought-chiefly-to-practice-ourselves - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/discourses_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/discourses_se/chapters