Epictetus’s Handbook for Living a Happy Life

This session and next, we will be exploring the ideas of an ancient philosophical school called Stoicism. Though it was founded around 300 B.C. in Greece, it flourished in the Roman empire. In fact, the first Stoic we will study, Epictetus, lived in the Roman city of Nicopolis in Western Greece, a city which had been visited by the Apostle Paul on his missionary travels some 30 years before Epictetus moved there. Epictetus was born a slave, and some accounts tell us that he suffered from a mobility impairment caused by the physical abuse of his master. At some point in his young adulthood, Epictetus gained his freedom and began to teach philosophy first in Rome, then later in Greece. 

One of his students, named Arrian, wrote down and circulated some of the lectures of Epictetus, which comes down to us as a text called the Discourses. This book was so popular that even the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius seems to have read it and been influenced by it. Arrian also compiled what he took to be the core teachings of Epictetus into the Handbook (encheiridion in Greek). This book—literally meant to be carried in your pocket—contained the essentials for living a good life, according to Epictetus’s Stoic (and indeed Socratic) worldview. Our reading for today is a selection of this Handbook. 

The Stoic philosophers taught that virtue is all one needs to be happy, and that all external things—things Epictetus says are “not up to us”—are completely unnecessary for happiness. Trying to control the things that are not up to us is the cause of unhappiness for many people, according to the Stoics. Instead, we ought to focus on what is up to us: namely, our character. By focusing our energies on cultivating the virtues (excellent character traits like honesty, justice, moderation, and courage), and responding to the fortunes and misfortunes of life in the right way, we can lead a happy life. This is true, Epictetus thinks, regardless of whether we are rich or poor, slave or free, disabled or abled, sick or healthy. Indeed, the Stoics argue that we can live a genuinely happy life, even if we should become the victims of horrific evils like violence, war, or natural disaster. 

Remember Aristotle, and the idea of eudaimonism? You might be able to tell already that the Stoics, like Aristotle, were eudaimonists. Accordingly, they thought that happiness—properly understood as human flourishing—was the end goal of human life, and taught that the way to achieve it was to focus on what is up to us—our character, the only thing we can fully control. 

Text: Epictetus’s Handbook (selections)