5 Ways to Be Happy According to Epictetus

Epictetus’s Stoicism will have quite a bit to say to you, because Stoicism is a philosophy of real life for real people living real lives. It’s a philosophy for people who make mistakes and harbor regrets. It’s also a philosophy for grown-ups. Stoicism asks you to quit mewling and making excuses and to face this problem you have, which is that your

In The Art of Living, the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 50-135 AD) wrote: Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and cannot control that in

should ever be united.”3 A better strategy for getting what you want, he says, is to make it your goal to want only those things that are easy to obtain—and ideally to want only those things that you can be certain of obtaining. While most people seek to gain contentment by changing the world around them, Epictetus advises us to gain contentment by

Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent and provide for the future, and cherish country living. That is to say, we will be reflective, we will be responsible and moderate, and we will find time to relax in nature.

The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things—rather than the things themselves—that cause most of our trouble. Stoicism teaches that we can’t control or rely on anything outside what Epictetus called our “reasoned choi