What you actually control
The first line of the book, and the only idea in it.
- I'm exhausted from trying to fix things I can't fix.
- How do I tell the difference between what I control and what I don't?
- Isn't accepting things just giving up?
Philosophy
Talk to The Enchiridion by Epictetus
The Enchiridion by Epictetus
- c. AD 125
- Koine Greek
- Public domain
Epictetus was born a slave. He was lame, probably from a beating. He owned nothing, taught in a bare room, and wrote nothing down — the Enchiridion is his student Arrian's compression of his lectures into fifty-three rules short enough to memorise.
The word means handbook, or more literally, something held in the hand. It was meant to be carried, not studied.
He is the most uncompromising voice in Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius soothes himself; Seneca reasons with you; Epictetus tells you flatly that you are upset about something that was never yours to begin with, and asks what you intend to do about it. People either find this liberating or infuriating, often in the same conversation.
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What you can ask it
Insult, criticism and other people
He was a slave. He had strong views on being treated badly.
- Someone said something cruel about me and I can't let it go.
- How do I stop needing people to approve of me?
- My family constantly criticises my choices.
Desire, loss and attachment
The famous passage about the cup, and the harder one about the child.
- I'm frightened of losing the people I love.
- How do I want things without being destroyed if I don't get them?
- I lost something I'd worked years for.
Playing your part
The role is assigned. The performance is yours.
- I hate the job I'm in but I can't leave yet.
- How do I do a role well that I didn't choose?
- What does a good life look like if I'm not free?
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Message the consciousness of The Enchiridion
Ask Epictetus's The Enchiridion a question and hear it answer in its own voice — no uploads, no summaries.
- I'm exhausted from trying to fix things I can't fix.
- Someone said something cruel about me and I can't let it go.
- I'm frightened of losing the people I love.
What The Enchiridion actually is
The Enchiridion is a short manual of practical Stoic ethics, compiled around AD 125 by Arrian from the lectures of his teacher Epictetus, a freed slave who taught philosophy in Nicopolis.
Its whole structure rests on one distinction, stated in the first line: some things are within your power and some are not. Your judgements, intentions and desires are yours. Your body, reputation, property and the behaviour of everyone else are not. Confuse the two and you guarantee your own misery.
Everything that follows is application — how to attend a dinner party, how to respond to insult, how to think about a broken cup, how to think about a dead child. It is about forty pages long and has been carried by soldiers, prisoners and admirals for nineteen centuries.
In its words
Passages
Some things are in our control and others not.
Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things.
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are.
Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it.
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Epictetus
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