Epictetus believed that happiness and inner peace are entirely within our power. But it may not seem that way, especially when we consider all the suffering in the world. People get sick and pass away, and there’s heartbreak and betrayal; crazy politicians lead countries to the brink of war.
How could we be happy and peaceful when confronted with so much adversity and uncertainty? Epictetus and his Stoic philosophy aim to solve the problem of being affected by outside circumstances. His words cut deep, and his approaches are no-nonsense.
Some of his ideas are so blunt that they are difficult to accept, let alone put into practice. Epictetus isn’t a gentle healer. His teachings don’t sugarcoat anything.
He tells us how it’s done. He emphasizes that half-measures won’t do the job. Profound inner peace requires freedom from all the things that disturb it.
And if we want to be truly free, we must go all the way. This video delves into the actual cause of our suffering and how we can overcome it and develop unshakable inner peace—a goal entirely within our power, according to Epictetus. Do you know what’s also entirely in your power?
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Thank you. And I hope you’ll enjoy this video. Although little is known about Epictetus’ life, historical records indicate he was likely born into slavery in Hierapolis (present-day Turkey) around 50 AD.
Epictetus showed a keen interest in philosophy, which he continued to pursue after gaining his freedom. He even studied under the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus in Rome. After emperor Domitian banned all philosophers from Rome, Epictetus went to Nicopolis, where he founded a school that attracted students from far and wide.
Epictetus’ teachings were not written down by him himself but preserved in the notes of his pupil Arrian, which we know today as the Discourses and the Enchiridion. Historical accounts suggest that Epictetus lived simply and taught with a sharp, direct style. He emphasized the ‘dichotomy of control’ and the goal of inner freedom.
He saw philosophy as more than something to study or play around with. To him, philosophy needs to be lived and practiced. True philosophers don’t just talk about philosophy; they embody it.
However, truly applying Epictetus’ teachings is no small feat. The road to inner peace requires changing how we see things, our values, and our desires; it demands practice, sacrifice, and dedication. To start our journey to inner peace, let’s find out what the ancient Stoics—Epictetus in particular—considered the root of our pain and suffering.
Epictetus believed that the root of our suffering lies in how we perceive and respond to external events. For instance, we grieve a financial loss, not because of the loss itself but because of our attachment to it. Similarly, spiders aren’t inherently scary; they are just creatures of nature.
However, our minds project fear onto them. The ancient Stoics noticed that whenever events and circumstances appear, we form value judgments about them. This process happens almost instantly, almost subconsciously.
For example, we see a spider and instantly judge it as bad news: We want to escape it. Or at the sight of a fresh loaf of bread, we feel drawn to it: We want to have it and eat it. We add these judgments to everything we encounter.
But not all of these impressions are reasonable. An example of a reasonable impression is when we see daylight. We see it’s light outside.
The sun is shining. Thus, our immediate judgment of that situation is that it’s day, which is probably a correct impression most of the time. An unreasonable impression is that a harmless house spider is a horrific, dangerous creature, and the appropriate response is profound fear and horror.
Judging everything we encounter is our way of making sense of the world. Animals do it, too, by the way. Human judgments can be socially conditioned, stem from religious belief, or may be natural inclinations.
Wherever our judgments come from, they often cause us to feel unpleasant emotions, such as fear and anger. Again, these forms of distress don’t come from the events and circumstances themselves; they come from these ‘judgments,’ these perceptions, and the responses we form concerning those events and circumstances. For example, if we perceive a loaf of bread as delicious, we likely develop a desire for it.
If we perceive a spider as dangerous, we likely develop an aversion to it. Epictetus noticed these two forces (desire and aversion) cause distress; whether it’s fear, anger, disappointment, grief, you name it. Suppose you’re angry because someone cuts you off in traffic.
Where does this anger come from? Is it coming from the event of ‘someone cutting you off in traffic,’ or is it coming from your judgment and attitude toward this event? Epictetus would argue it’s the latter.
More specifically, your desire not to encounter people cutting you off automatically implies an aversion toward those who do. Both are sides of the same coin. It’s all fun and games if we obtain what we desire and avoid what we’re averse to.
An aversion to antisocial road users (and, thus, a desire not to encounter them) will not cause suffering as long as you don’t encounter them. But if you do encounter someone who tailgates you, honks unnecessarily, or cuts you off dangerously, the seed of your aversion begins to cast off its fruits. But wait a minute.
Desire and aversion only cause trouble if we encounter what we’re averse to or don’t get what we want, right? Seems pretty simple to solve: just live where nobody ever cuts you off! Or how about cranking up the fine for tailgating to, let’s say, a million dollars per offense?
These measures could work for a while… until they don’t. According to Epictetus, we’re better off not relying on outside circumstances to maintain inner peace. So why is that, exactly?
Desire and aversion aren’t always bad, says Epictetus. Directing these forces at things we have complete power over could lead to some pretty good outcomes. Mind you, the goal in Stoicism is living in agreement with nature, which is synonymous with living a life of virtue.
In Stoicism, virtue is the only good, whereas vice is the only bad. From the Stoic perspective, living a good life and avoiding a bad life are completely within our power. Therefore, the desire to become virtuous and avoid becoming vicious is perfectly appropriate from a Stoic point of view because those choices are within our control.
But it gets problematic when we direct desire and aversion toward external things beyond our control. These things are capricious. Epictetus called them fickle, weak, and slavish.
If we let our happiness depend on these things—be they events, circumstances, objects, or people outside of our control, such as politicians and their wealthy surrogates—we put ourselves at the mercy of Fate. The whims of Lady Fortune will decide how we feel. It’s a very unreliable position to be in: suffering and a lack of inner peace are guaranteed.
Here’s what Epictetus said about it: Attach your desire and aversion to wealth and property, and you’ll fail to get what you desire, and you’ll fall into what you want to avoid. Attach them to health, and you’ll fall into misfortune, and likewise if you attach them to public office, honours, your country, friends, children, and, in a word, to anything that lies outside the sphere of choice. End quote.
Epictetus mentions friends and children, people we count among our loved ones. Usually, we’re attached to our loved ones. It’s why we consider them ‘loved ones’ in the first place.
And the desire and aversion we attach to those loved ones usually go deep. We deeply desire for them to stay close to us, love us back, and never part from us. Losing our loved ones, especially our spouses and children, can be one of the most profound forms of suffering.
For most parents, it’s almost unbearable to lose a child. And the idea of one’s spouse disappearing from one’s life can be immensely frightening. However, as these attachments are generally the strongest, they also carry the possibility of causing the most excruciating pain.
When we’re deeply attached to these people, suffering is inevitable because losing them is unavoidable. Loving them doesn’t give us power over them. We can hold on to our children as tightly as possible: their fate is ultimately not up to us.
I can’t deny that attachment carries some beauty—the yearning, the pleasure of being with that person, the intimacy, even the ‘missing each other’ and the ‘can’t be without you’ sentiments. But through this attachment, we also become puppets of unpredictable forces we’re powerless against. Hence, Epictetus suggested we should stop valuing things beyond our control.
He stated: Why, then, are we angry? Because we attach value to the things that these people steal from us. Well, stop attaching such value to your clothes, and you won’t be angry with the man who steals them.
Don’t attach value to the beauty of your wife and you won’t be angry with the adulterer. End quote. It is easier said than done to stop attaching desire and aversion to things, but Epictetus offered ways to do so.
If events don’t disturb our peace but our perceptions and judgments do, we should focus on changing our thinking, not the universe. From the Stoic perspective, our thinking should be reasonable. If our thinking is reasonable, it’s aligned with nature, which, they argue, results in an undisturbed inner peace (as part of the eudaimonic experience, a story for another day).
Epictetus proposes that to reduce our desire and aversion, we should learn to see the general nature of things. Let’s return to the example of traffic. Suppose, again, you’re averse to antisocial road users.
You despise them. “They should learn to behave! They shouldn’t cut people off!
They shouldn’t tailgate! They shouldn’t just come out of nowhere, not minding anyone else! ” These are all value judgments.
They are pretty angry ones, too. But are they reasonable? No, according to Epictetus.
They are unreasonable because if we consider traffic as it is, all these things are to be expected. It’s how the gods intended it, would the ancient Stoics say. Through these value judgments, you position yourself against the flow of nature, against Zeus’ will—no wonder you experience emotional turmoil.
You can’t beat the gods, for Heaven’s sake! Realizing the general nature of things allows us to see the folly of our judgments and foster acceptance of things the way they are. Here’s what Epictetus said about this: With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things.
If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.
End quote. That last sentence can sound cold or unsettling, but remember that Epictetus wasn’t known for gentle consolations. It also doesn’t mean we can’t cherish or care for our loved ones.
We can. But according to Epictetus, true freedom—and unshakable inner peace—come only when we let go of desire and aversion for “lesser things,” even those we hold most dear. It’s a radical path.
When we realize that whatever happens in the world—rude people, unfaithful spouses, the loss of loved ones, or even the aging of our bodies—unfolds as Fate intended, we open ourselves to acceptance. In this case, acceptance doesn’t mean passively tolerating everything, like injustice. It’s about accepting that many things are beyond your control, not being at their mercy emotionally, and, thus, focusing on things you do control.
Stoic virtue includes striving to improve the world wherever we can. Wouldn’t it be better to do so with clarity and inner peace rather than from a place of anger or fear? Now, how do we “accept” life’s difficulties?
How could we possibly find comfort in the loss of a spouse or child without being destroyed by it? Epictetus flips the concept of acceptance on its head. From his perspective, you have difficulties accepting all this stuff because, deep inside, you still have a lot of desire and aversion toward things out of control.
Acceptance, then, is less about forcing yourself to endure what you dread and more about aligning your desires and aversions with the natural order of the universe. Instead of focusing on acceptance, how about we redirect our desire and aversion so that it perfectly aligns with the natural flow of the universe? Here’s where Epictetus’ simple but profound piece of wisdom comes to fruition, and I quote: Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.
End quote. Wishing for things to happen as they do, instead of demanding things to happen as you want, instantly blows away all resistance. You simply let go of all demands, all aversions, all attachments to specific outcomes, all bitterness of things not working out the way you want.
What a relief. And what a peaceful way to exist in the face of an erratic universe. It’s also a much firmer starting point for making the world a better place.
So, what do you think about Epictetus’ radical teachings? Please let me know in the comment section. Thank you for watching.
