My dear Lucillius Make this your business in life: Learn to share the Joy of a Soul Happy and Confident, lifted above every circumstance " Seneca Epistles

Jonathan Barnes, Logic and Imperial Stoa, Leiden: Brill, 1997 (Chapter Three: Epictetuts, pp.24–127). [ ISBNmissing] This is a manual for Business Ethics 101. The following metaphor is not original to me, but imagine your life as placed on a wheel with spokes. If you focus your life in the center, the hub, then when the wheel turns, as it must, you will be moved, to be sure, but you won’t be thrown over the place. After this manner, those that had been great lords and ladies here, got but a poor scurvy wretched living there below. And, on the contrary, the philosophers and others, who in this world had been altogether indigent and wanting, were great lords there in their turn. I went through Epictetus at approximately half my usual reading speed, as I am unaccustomed to philosophy and wanted to understand it as best I could. The experience was rewarding. Epictetus has much to say about freedom and a good life that resonates today. It’s tempting to see Stoicism as passive and fatalistic, but I came to consider that a function of modern individualism and impatience. Epictetus makes it clear that Stoic philosophy is not something you read in a book, or a fashion choice (he specifically complains about hipsters dressing ‘philosophically’!), but an integral part of daily life. To simplify, he seems to say that you should live a good life insofar as you can: consider all your behaviour carefully, be content with what you have, accept that all things are fleeting, and quietly set a good example rather than evangelising. This, it seems, will bring you true freedom and happiness. The term Stoic has become synonymous with uncomplaining suffering, which isn’t really what Epictetus advocates. He suggests that you aim not to suffer at all, to accept what is outside your control and be happy about the little that is within it. He does accept this is very difficult, perhaps impossible for many, and he struggles himself. Which doesn’t mean, he argues, that everyone shouldn’t aspire to it:By this I am led to another potential shortcoming in Epictetus’s system: fatalism. If everyone is entirely responsible for their own peace of mind, and if circumstances play no role in human happiness, then there is no reason to help anybody or to try to improve the world: “If anyone suffers misfortune, remember that he suffers it through his own fault, since God created all human beings to enjoy happiness, to enjoy peace of mind.” Again, in this situation I think Epictetus’s hard division between things outside or within our control blinds him to the dialogue between attitude and circumstances that comprise human life and happiness. Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion, 46. It is possible that he married her, but Simplicius' language on that subject is ambiguous. Schatzman, Morton (2007-07-30). "Albert Ellis: Psychotherapist who preached a rational, behavioural approach". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2007-10-18.

We are bound up by the law of nature with the whole fabric of the world. [15] In the world the true position of a human is that of a member of a great system. [15] Each human being is in the first instance a citizen of one's own nation or commonwealth; but we are also a member of the great city of gods and people. [15] Nature places us in certain relations to other persons, and these determine our obligations to parents, siblings, children, relatives, friends, fellow-citizens, and humankind in general. [21] The shortcomings of our fellow people are to be met with patience and charity, and we should not allow ourselves to grow indignant over them, for they too are a necessary element in the universal system. [21] Providence [ edit ] Reason alone is good, the irrational is evil, and the irrational is intolerable to the rational. [46] The good person should labour chiefly on their own reason; to perfect this is in our power. [47] To repel evil opinions by the good is the noble contest in which humans should engage; it is not an easy task, but it promises true freedom, peace of mind ( ataraxia), and a divine command over the emotions ( apatheia). [48] We should especially be on our guard against the opinion of pleasure because of its apparent sweetness and charms. [49] The first object of philosophy, therefore, is to purify the mind. [50] That certainly seems like something worth aspiring to. Perhaps more immediately applicable was the commentary on reading in discourse 4.4, in which Epictetus points out that reading should be for a purpose: to help you live better. Thus time spent outside books is an opportunity to put into practise all that you’ve read. I think he has a good point there, although I greatly enjoy a bit of escapist reading. I also sympathise with his dislike of having a body, which is after all a real drag: Anyway, those are just the musings of a questioning mind while reading fragment after fragment of a seemingly absurd practical philosophy.The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments, Robin Waterfield (trans.) (2022) ISBN 978-0226769479 Aurelius was one of the most powerful men of his time and Seneca was one of the wealthiest of his. Epictetus was at the other end of the spectrum You are in control of/responsible for your judgement, impulse, desire, aversion and mental faculties. The virtuous person knows they have power over these things and can practice discernment in how they perceive and take on the world through their own filtered mind. Because you think of yourself as no more than a single thread in the robe, whose duty it is to conform to the mass of people – just as a single white thread seemingly has no wish to clash with the remainder of the garment. But I aspire to be the purple stripe, that is, the garment’s brilliant hem. However small a part it may be, it can still manage to make the garment as a whole attractive And as opposed to many of the then current ethics (like Aristotelean, Skeptic and Epicurean ethics), and in line with Socratic conceptions of virtue as knowledge, the Stoic ethics consists in practice, not theory. Only through acting like a Stoic is one a philosopher; all contemplation and theorizing about ethics is futile, since as soon as the class closes, one has to practice what he's learned. And thus we end up with a sort of self-help book avant la lettre. As a matter of fact, in the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Epictetus' Discourses, Robbert Dobbin writes that Stoicism (and Epictetus especially) inspired many a twentieth century psychologist in developing some version of rational cognitive theory.