Epictetus: The Handbook

Do not seeks to have events happen as you want them to,
but instead want them to happen as the do happen,
and your life will go well.

This quote from Epictetus' handbook is a condensed explanation of the Stoic interpretation of how we should live our lives. The Stoic beliefs pushed people to accept the obstacles that came their way and to always adapt to the situation to be in harmony with nature. In this case nature means the way things are and this is the way they are meant to be, almost like a person's predetermined fate that they should never fight. This idealism was to help people be more sastified with their lives and to accept the things they couldn't change so that they had absolutely no reason be unhappy because all the things that they have control over is perfectly aligned with nature. The Stoic believe that we have to curb our desires according to the way the external world is so that we can't long for the unreachable, thus staying perfectly content.

The Stoics press the idea that what is ours is under our control and cannot make us discontent because we have the power to change it. They also state that we shouldn't be plighted by the things in life that we cannot change because it will only make us negative. Also they say that life is organized by the cosmos meaning that everything is the way it is and happens the way it does because that is exactly how it is meant to be, just like the number two will always follow one. The Stoics believe that by us doing these things we can then be inching towards the "ideal" human being, basically this way of acting is a process where we work to improve ourselves. We want to reach our "ideal condition" to live in complete satisfaction with ourselves.

I think that some of Epictetus' ideas seem slightly impossible because it is human nature to fight the current instead of just going with the flow. We wont just let the worst things wash over us because we want to achieve a better demeanor, also in more modern times people are more rash and less religious or disciplined. These rules aren't so effective for the twenty-first century because we aren't worried about achieving godly perfection. I had trouble understanding some of the rules that he wrote because they go around in circles and some seem to be contradictory. I think that some of Epictetus' ideas were well thought out but they are too stand-offish. You aren't allowed to have serious, lasting relationships with earthly things because they don't belong to you but are "borrowed" and he says that after death are "given back". Overall I think that his way of thinking is too unattached and I don't know if this dettachment could really be the way to achieve godliness.