Plain
Epictetus — The Slave

So what if that happens? If a great boar shows up, you'll fight an even greater fight. If bad men appear, you'll rid the earth of them. But suppose I die doing this? Then you'll die as a good man, doing something noble. Since you're definitely going to die anyway, death has to find you doing something. Maybe farming, or digging, or trading, or serving as consul, or suffering from stomach problems or diarrhea. So what do you want to be doing when death finds you?

Discourses, What Things We Ought to Despise and What Things We Ought to Value 370 of 388
Death & Mortality Doing The Right Thing
Epictetus — The Slave Original

And what do you care for that? If a great boar appear, you will fight a greater fight; if bad men appear, you will relieve the earth of the bad. Suppose then that I lose my life in this way. You will die a good man, doing a noble act. For since he must certainly die, of necessity a man must be found doing something, either following the employment of a husbandman, or digging, or trading, or serving in a consulship, or suffering from indigestion or from diarrhoea. What then do you wish to be doing when you are found by death?

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Epictetus — The Slave

What's going to happen — is that outside your control? Yes. And good and evil — do they exist in the things you can control? Yes. So can you handle whatever happens in the right way? Can anyone stop you from doing that? No one can. Then stop asking me "How will things turn out?" However they turn out, you'll handle them well. And that will make things work out fine for you. What would Hercules have been if he had said "What if I don't get to fight a great lion, or a great boar, or dangerous men?"

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Freedom & Control Facing Hardship
Epictetus — The Slave Original

Now is not that which will happen independent of the will? Yes. And the nature of good and of evil, is it not in the things which are within the power of the will? Yes. Is it in your power then to treat according to nature everything which happens? Can any person hinder you? No man. No longer then say to me, How will it be? For, however it may be, you will dispose of it well, and the result to you will be a fortunate one. What would Hercules have been if he said: How shall a great lion not appear to me, or a great boar, or savage men?

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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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