Indifference to Externals
Wealth, health, fame, and all external circumstances are neither good nor bad in themselves — they are 'indifferent.'
Stoics distinguished virtue (good), vice (bad), and everything else (indifferent). Externals like health, wealth, and reputation can be rationally preferred or dispreferred, but they do not affect the quality of one's soul. The wise person pursues preferred indifferents without anxiety, since their fundamental wellbeing depends only on virtue.
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
The concept of 'preferred indifferents' is the Stoic solution to the problem of engagement with the world without attachment.
Enchiridion
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about fear and anxiety
Health, money and reputation are worth preferring, but they are not where wellbeing is held. That is what allows you to pursue them without dreading their loss.
- What Stoicism says about envy and comparison
Stoicism sorts wealth, health and reputation into a third category — neither good nor bad, merely 'preferred' — so the thing you envy is, by this classification, not a good at all. The hedge is real: preferring them is permitted, which is precisely how Stoics with money kept theirs.