Epictetus /
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"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life."
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"Epictetus (born AD 55, probably at Hierapolis, Phrygia [now Pamukkale, Turkey]—died c. 135, Nicopolis, Epirus [Greece]) was a Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, remembered for the religious tone of his teachings, which commended him to numerous early Christian thinkers.
His original name is not known; epiktētos is the Greek word meaning “acquired.” As a boy he was a slave but managed to attend lectures by the Stoic Musonius Rufus. He later became a freedman and lived his life lame and in ill health. In AD 90 he was expelled from Rome with other philosophers by the emperor Domitian, who was irritated by the favourable reception given by Stoics to opponents of his tyranny. The rest of his life Epictetus spent at Nicopolis.
As far as is known, Epictetus wrote nothing. His teachings were transmitted by Arrian, his pupil, in two works: Discourses, of which four books are extant; and the Encheiridion, or Manual, a condensed aphoristic version of the main doctrines. In his teachings Epictetus followed the early rather than the late Stoics, reverting to Socrates and to Diogenes, the philosopher of Cynicism, as historical models of the sage. Primarily interested in ethics, Epictetus described philosophy as learning “how it is possible to employ desire and aversion without hindrance.” True education, he believed, consists in recognizing that there is only one thing that belongs to an individual fully—his will, or purpose. God, acting as a good king and father, has given each being a will that cannot be compelled or thwarted by anything external. Men are not responsible for the ideas that present themselves to their consciousness, though they are wholly responsible for the way in which they use them. #fblifestyle
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