"The universe is change. Life is opinion."

After ruling the Roman Empire and reorganizing it from crisis, Diocletian abdicated in 305 CE and retired to his farm at Salona. When urged years later to reclaim the purple amid fresh turmoil, he refused, saying that if they saw the cabbages he had grown with his own hands, they would not press him to return. Power rose and fell. HIs judgment about what mattered changed with it, and he was free.

Fact, not lament. All forms dissolve and re-form: bodies, reputations, regimes, markets, fashions. To resist this is to resist nature.

Instead, expect flux, with nothing owed to you tomorrow in the same shape as today. Attach your effort to causes (virtue), not to results (forms). When loss bites, respond with, "I gave it back." You never owned what was lent by fate.

Life is opinion, not relativism. Opinion is a personal judgment about impressions. Epictetus remarked that people are troubled not by things, but by their opinions about things. The event is external, and your assent is internal.

Accordingly, separate impression from assent. An impression arrives ("He slighted me") and assent is optional ("Therefore I am outraged"). Train the pause. Good and bad belong to your choices, not to external events. Call externals by their right names: "preferred" or "dispreferred", never "good" or "bad".

Common Errors to Discard

1. "If outcomes change, effort is pointless." False. Virtue uses change as material, as fire uses fuel.
2. "Opinion creates reality." No. Opinion governs your action within reality. It does not bend nature.
3. "Accepting changes means being passive." Wrong. Acceptance clears anger and panic so you can act justly and effectively.

Modern Life

• Career anxieties: Title and timing are change. Your craft and integrity are yours. Do today's work well. Release the idea of a promotion.
• Political outrage: Regimes turn like seasons. Fulfill the duties of a good citizen without poisoning your self-control.
• Social media: Trends are change. Comments are impressions. Your opinion turns them into wounds. Withdraw assent, use the medium deliberately, or close it.

Maxims

• Change is the rule, and virtue is the aim.
• Impressions are involuntary, and assent is free.
• Do what is in your control, and accept the rest as already woven into nature's fabric.

In-depth Concepts

Causes & Virtue

You control proximate causes such as your judgments, choices, and actions. You do not control final outcomes which depend on external causes such as chance, other people, and nature. Virtue is excellence in choosing and acting given the materials that fate provides. The work is the cause, and the outcome is its shadow. Measure yourself by inputs (intent, effort, justice, discipline, courage, wisdon), not by the outputs (profit, likes, titles).

Results & Forms

Results are outcomes, and forms are the specific configurations they take such as job titles, market valuations, reputations, and aesthetics. The are impermanent. Treat results/forms with indifference, as "preferred" or "dispreferred", and not as "good" or "bad" in themselves. Goodness is only in how you pursue or use them. In your career, pursue competence justly, and the outcomes will follow as they will. If the outcome is preferred, use it for good. If the outcome is dispreferred, continue your pursuit of virtue undeterred.

Relativism

Stoic philosophy rejects moral relativism. It is not the case that "anything goes". Instead, there is an objective standard of living in accordance to nature and reason: The virtues of wisdon, justice, courage, and discipline. Your experience depends on judgments, but it does not mean truth is invented by preference. No matter what the crowd approves, test it by the four virtues. If it conflicts with any of them, it is vice, even if popular.

Impression & Assent

Impressions (phantasiai) are the raw appearances hitting the mind, such as sensations, headlines, emotions rising, or someone's tone or behavior. They are involuntary. Assent (sunkatathesis) is your agreement with an impression's claim. This is voluntary and is where your responsibility lives. Do not confuse feeling with fact ("I feel insulted, therefore I was wronged.") or arrive at instant narratives (She didn't text → disrespect → I must retaliate). Instead, pause, name the impression neutrally, test it, and withhold assent until you have evidence and a virtuous response.

Checks

1. At initiation: Define the internal cause you control (virtue).
2. During action: Guard assent and accept impressions without surrender.
3. At result: Note the form taken and remain steady whether it is preferred or dispreferred.
4. Against relativism: Reassess by the four virtues, not by popularity or feeling.