“Wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.”—Epictetus, Roman philosopher
It’s advice that’s alien to the modern mentality. Shouldn’t everyone want everything to be better? But when we consider various people’s definitions of “better” and how the logical conclusion of certain forms of progress is often worse than the imperfect status quo, we might reconsider this statement. Although we aren’t likely to become fatalists in the end, Epictetus might help us to curb overzealous idealism.
A Life of Slavery
Epictetus was born around A.D. 50 in Phrygia (present-day Turkey). Unlike his older contemporary Seneca, who was a member of the aristocracy, Epictetus was born into slavery. If Seneca was a thinker much like St. Paul—a comparison I made in last week’s article in this series—then Epictetus is more directly comparable with Jesus. While Seneca professed the value of seeing life from the position of the slave, Epictetus lived this outlook. This complete coherence of life and thought led to Epictetus being called the greatest of the Stoic philosophers….