Lessons in Stoicism: What Ancient Philosophers Teach Us about How to Live

by John Sellars

The philosopher, he says, is a doctor, and the philosopher’s school is a hospital – a hospital for souls.

Later on in his Handbook, Epictetus proposes thinking of your life as if you were an actor in a play. You haven’t chosen your role, you don’t get to decide what happens, and you have no control over how long it will last. Rather than fight against all these things which are out of your control, your task is to play the role you find yourself in as best as you can.

Antipater, a Stoic writing some time before Epictetus, drew an analogy with archery: even an expert archer will sometimes miss the target because the wind might blow his arrow off course. There’s absolutely nothing the archer can do about this. The same goes for medicine: no matter how good doctors are, sometimes factors out of their control mean they are unable to save a patient.

Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.

Now you want me to leave the fair, so I go, feeling nothing but gratitude for having been allowed to share with you in the celebration. Life is an event, like a fair or a party, and like all such events it must come to an end. It is up to us whether we thank the host for a good time or bemoan the fact that it cannot go on for longer.