This is the very thing which makes up the virtue of the happy person and a well-flowing life—when the affairs of life are in every way tuned to the harmony between the individual divine spirit and the will of the director of the universe.
—Chrysippus, Quoted In Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of The Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.88
In undergoing a twelve-step program, many addicts struggle most with step 2: acknowledging a higher power. Addicts often fight this one. At first they claim it’s because they’re atheists or because they don’t like religion or because they don’t understand why it matters.
But they later realize that this is just the addiction talking—it’s another form of selfishness and self-absorption. The actual language of the step is pretty easy to swallow: “[We] came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Subsequent steps ask the addict to submit and let go. The second step really has less to do with “god” than those other steps—the letting go. It’s about attuning to the universe and discarding the toxic idea that we’re at the center of it.
It’s no wonder that the Stoics are popular with those in twelve-step programs. It’s also clear that this wisdom is beneficial to us all. You don’t have to believe there is a god directing the universe, you just need to stop believing that you’re that director. As soon as you can attune your spirit to that idea, the easier and happier your life will be, because you will have given up the most potent addiction of all: control.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman