Discourses 4.4 ¶6 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 4.4 ¶6

Do you only bear in mind the general rules: what is mine? what is not mine? what is given (permitted) to me? what does God will that I should do now? what does he not will? A little before he willed you to be at leisure, to talk with yourself, to write about these things, to read, to hear, to prepare yourself. You had sufficient time for this. Now he says to you: Come now to the contest, show us what you have learned, how you have practiced the athletic art. How long will you be exercised alone? Now is the opportunity for you to learn whether you are an athlete worthy of victory, or one of those who go about the world and are defeated. Why then are you vexed? No contest is without confusion. There must be many who exercise themselves for the contest, many who call out to those who exercise themselves, many masters, many spectators.—“But my wish is to live quietly.”—Lament then and groan as you deserve to do. For what other is a greater punishment than this to the untaught man and to him who disobeys the divine commands: to be grieved, to lament, to envy, in a word to be disappointed and to be unhappy? Would you not release yourself from these things?—“And how shall I release myself?”—Have you not often heard that you ought to remove entirely desire, apply aversion (turning away) to those things only which are within your power, that you ought to give up everything: body, property, fame, books, tumult, power, private station? for whatever way you turn, you are a slave, you are subjected, you are hindered, you are compelled, you are entirely in the power of others. But keep the words of Cleanthes in readiness: Lead me, O Zeus, and thou necessity.