Living By Epictetus Essay

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Philosophers have pondered the meaning of life for millennia. Some say that the meaning of life is to find happiness, or to flourish. But what is happiness? A stoic named Epictetus goes into great detail to explain how one should find happiness. In theory, living by Epictetus’ guidelines of only worrying about things you can control would be worth it and make you flourish; however, it is impossible to do so because human nature causes us to focus on things that are out of our control. Epictetus describes being truly happy as being free (Epictetus 1). To become free, you must give up on anything that is out of your control like body, fame, or power (Epictetus 1, 2, 24). Humans have no control over what happens to their bodies; if we are born …show more content…
Some of Epictetus’ advice is sound and would benefit a lot of people if it were followed, but I personally do not think that it can be followed. When someone close to us dies, it is only natural to mourn that person’s death. When someone mocks you, we feel hurt and embarrassed. To flourish in my opinion is to be completely stress free, but also living as a human being. Epictetus makes it seem like the only way to have a flourishing life is basically to become a robot that feels no emotion. Feeling no emotion would separate you from all external things, but how does that really make you happy. According to him, a perfect life would be to live in complete isolation away from all things, only taking in what you need to survive, and contemplating your own thoughts and ideas. I believe a great deal of human interaction is required for you to have a flourishing life. I would much rather know the pain of losing a loved one instead of instantly letting them go. I would also like to judge external things and feel sorry for myself when something bad happens to me. It all goes back to being human. Epictetus wants to cut off part of your brain in order to live a happy life, but if that were the way the god(s) wanted life to work then why wouldn’t they make us like

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