Enchiridion 2, and part of Keith Seddon's commentary on it

 

Enchiridion 2, and part of Keith Seddon's commentary on it

Chapter 2
[1] Remember that the promise of desire is the attainment of what you desire, that of aversion is not to fall into what is avoided, and that he who fails in his desire is unfortunate, while he who falls into what he would avoid experiences misfortune. If, then, you avoid only what is unnatural among those things which are under your control, you will fall into none of the things which you avoid; but if you try to avoid disease, or death, or poverty, you will experience misfortune. [2] Withdraw, therefore, your aversion from all the matters that are not under our control, and transfer it to what is unnatural among those which are under our control. But for the time being remove utterly your desire; for if you desire some one of the things that are not under our control you are bound to be unfortunate; and, at the ​same time, not one of the things that are under our control, which it would be excellent for you to desire, is within your grasp. But employ only choice and refusal, and these too but lightly, and with reservations, and without straining" (Epictetus, Enchiridion 2; Oldfather).


"In Handbook 2.2 we are told to ‘completely restrain’ our desires.
Certainly, if we desire things that are not in our power, sooner or later
our desires will be obstructed and we will be prone to frustration,
annoyance, anger, or some other pathos, or possibly a cocktail of several
pathê all at once. This then is the first task for the Stoic prokoptôn – to
simply desire nothing (Discourses 1.4, 3.12.8, 3.22.13, 4.4.33/39,
4.8.33). In the penultimate sentence of Handbook 2.2 Epictetus tells us
not even to desire those things ‘in our power which it would be proper
to desire’ – and these are the virtues, the components of a wholly
virtuous disposition enjoyed by the fully wise person – because at such
an early stage of training we simply do not properly understand what that disposition is like: we cannot direct our desire towards an object
that we cannot represent to ourselves" (Seddon, pp. 41--2).

Keith Seddon (2005). Epictetus' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes

Enchiridion 3, and part of Keith Seddon's commentary on it