Choose What Happens To You
Reclaim power over the uncontrollable by actively willing whatever fate deals you
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 72%
This is a Stoic reframe for hacking your own stress response. The Stoics sorted everything into what is within your control and what is not; for the vast majority that lies outside it, they counseled indifference and, further, active willing. Epictetus said if fate wants him sick, he wants to be sick too. By choosing what befalls you, you take psychological control over it: you stop being the passive object of events and become the agent who elected them, which lets you 'wrestle with it' and look for how it might better you. Taraban illustrates with the two-hamster study, where the hamster forced to run on another's schedule shows dramatically higher stress than the one running by its own volition, even though both are caged. We are mostly the second hamster, so the leverage is not in the event but in choosing our response.
Origin
Taraban frames this as a psych hack drawn from the Stoics' dichotomy of control and Epictetus, reinforced by a locus-of-control hamster study he heard discussed by Matthew Hussey and Viktor Frankl's account of dignity under inescapable suffering.
Core principles
- 01Most of what happens is outside your locus of control
- 02You always control the stance you take toward events
- 03Choosing a hardship converts it from something done to you into something you do
- 04An internal locus of control lowers stress even under identical conditions
- 05There is dignity available even where escape is impossible
How to run it
- 1
Sort control from non-control
Divide the situation into what you can actually influence and what you cannot. Accept that most of it, shaped by forces set in motion long ago, is outside your control.
Pro tip Be honest that far more is outside your control than your ego wants to admit.
- 2
Drop resistance to the uncontrollable
For what you can't change, replace struggle and indifference-by-default with deliberate acceptance. Resistance only adds suffering to the unavoidable.
Pro tip Notice where you're expending energy fighting a fact rather than responding to it.
Watch out Acceptance is not passivity about things you genuinely can change.
- 3
Actively will the outcome
Move from acceptance to choosing: tell yourself 'I want what fate has in store,' converting the event from something done to you into something you elected.
Pro tip The shift from 'happening to me' to 'I chose this' is where the stress reduction lives.
- 4
Mine it for growth
Ask what the hardship can develop in you and engage it almost masochistically as raw material for becoming stronger. Find the dignity available even where escape is impossible.
Pro tip Frame it as an opportunity to come out 'reborn on the other side' rather than merely to endure.
In the wild
In the study Taraban cites, one hamster runs on a wheel whenever it chooses; a second is wired to a wheel that spins only when the first one runs, forcing it to run on another's schedule. Despite identical cages, the forced hamster shows night-and-day higher stress. The lesson: taking even a little power back by choosing your response, saying 'I chose this' rather than 'this is happening to me,' changes your internal state.
→ The internally-controlled runner is far less stressed than the externally-controlled one under the same conditions.
Common mistakes
Confusing acceptance with passivity
Willing what you can't change is powerful, but misapplying it to things you could actually fix becomes an excuse for inaction.
Staying in resentment
Continuing to frame events as done to you keeps you in the high-stress, external-locus state the reframe is meant to escape.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone facing hardship, uncertainty or setbacks they cannot escape but can reframe their stance toward.
Not ideal for
Situations you can and should actually change through action rather than merely accept.
From the transcript
“if you can try and take a little bit of power back from whatever it is that's occurred to you I chose this as opposed…”
“epicas talked about how if Zeus wants me to be sick then I want to be sick as well I want what Fate has in…”
From the episode
How To Hack Your Psychology And Become More Resilient - Dr Orion Taraban - #758
Dr Orion Taraban