Epictetus: The Handbook Part 2

Epictetus' strongest belief is that all the bad things that happen to us we bring upon ourselves. I think that his way of thinking is the essence of Stoism because to be a god you have to accept things and not fight the current. I agree with the fact that you bring misfortune upon yourself but i think that this view should be more flexible. People want to make a difference and change their future. What i like about the Stoic way of thinking is that it encourages people to take responsibility for their actions and to only accept a task in which you know you will succeed. It also promotes self discipline and determination by telling the reader that you have to be willing to conform your lifestyle in order to fulfill your goals. If you fail it will be humiliation and this motivates people to responsibly make the best decisions and put in 100 percent effort. This is mentioned in number 29.

One of the points that I liked very much and seems quite debatable is
27. Just as a target is not set up to be missed, in the same way nothing bad by nature happens in the world. This goes along with his theory that nothing bad happens unless we medle with nature. For example if I am playing a sport and I drop the ball, I have altered the course of the game because now my team may have lost possesion so I have accidentally medled with nature. But, is this valid? Is it my fault I dropped the ball? Maybe I was being lazy and didn't run for it but what if it was just and honest mistake? Then I don't think it is justifiable to fault me for an unintentional mistake. This quote is saying that a target is not made to be missed but no one succeeds at everything they do, it's human error. So I think that as long as you try your hardest to hit that target you are not causing bad things. The only way we can make this quote completely true is by not doing anything at all so that there is absolutely no chance of me missing the target at all. This is one of the reasons why I don't always agree with Epictetus, it seems like with his theories the only way we can be completely faultless is by not doing anything at all.