The Things We Cannot Control

When reading Epictetus’ Handbook, I noticed that a repeated topic in his teachings is the concept of control. He repeatedly goes back to this idea of what we as humans can and cannot control. To summarize his stance on this, he believed that we should just accept the things that are out of our control and our lives will be much better. While I do agree with this in some areas, in others I find that my opinion differs. I think that in many situations, when something is out of our control, we can get very overwhelmed or frustrated. For me personally, this is a very common experience. Many times I have found myself over-reacting in situations I know I cannot control. Ironically, often times I’m reacting in that way because I know I have no control. Epictetus believes that one should never have that sort of reaction in those situations. On page 55 its written, “So if you are adverse to only what is against nature among the things that are up to you, then you will never fall to anything you are adverse to; but if you are adverse to illness or death or poverty, you will meet misfortune.” He believes that by not accepting the things you cannot control, by disliking or fearing them, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. It is this viewpoint that I agree with.

However, Epictetus takes it a step further by saying to basically belittle the things you love in your mind so that you will not be upset when you lose them. As an example, he says that if you kiss your wife or child, to tell yourself that you are just kissing another human. This is because death and loss are inevitable and we cannot control it so he thinks we should prepare for it. In Stoicism it is thought that emotions hinder us from understanding reason and are therefore harmful. With Epictetus being a stoic, it makes sense that he would think this way about loving people or items. Personally, I do not agree with this thinking. I think that love is an enormous part of the human experience and loss as well. I believe that it is the way we love aggressively, fearlessly, and with our whole hearts that makes us human. By putting only half your heart into the things you love, you are getting half of the experience of being human, of life itself. After all, what would life be if humans did not love completely?