Summary: Enchiridion
Epictetus' Enchiridion represents an excellent introduction to Stoicism. Easily accessible, it contains the fundamental idea of seeking only those goods that depend solely on us. It is not a book written by Epictetus himself, but a compilation of his teachings by his disciple Arrian.
How to achieve happiness?
Happiness comes through freedom. To be happy is to be free, but the problem is not solved: how to become free?
Epictetus proposes his famous distinction between things that don't depend on us (e.g. our bodies, fame, power...) and things that depend on us (our judgments about things, our desires, our aversions...).
To be free is to concentrate on the things that depend on us, and no longer give importance to those that do not depend on us. Indeed, they do not depend on our will alone, but on chance, on external circumstances; for example, the fame to which we aspire does not depend entirely on our talent, but also on those who will be willing to take the time to discover that talent.
In this type of action, we do not have total power, we are not the sole acting and determining cause of the success of our action. As a result, we expose ourselves to reversals of fortune or disillusionment that will make us unhappy.
On the other hand, many things or actions depend solely on my own will. For example, I can decide whether or not to work tonight. I can decide what judgement I make about this or that. We are free, and therefore happy, when we focus our attention on these things. So:
If you believe to be yours that alone which is yours, and foreign that which is indeed foreign to you, no one will ever be able to constrain you, no one will hinder you; you will attack no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing in spite of yourself; no one will harm you; you will have no enemy, for you will suffer nothing harmful 1.
What fundamentally depends on us is not the events of our lives, or external things, but the judgements we make about them. For example, as mortal beings, we cannot avoid dying; but we can decide what meaning we give to death. We can see it as something frightening, and we will, distressed by this idea, waste our whole life; but we can also see it as the normal end of a natural cycle, or a rest that relieves the suffering of old age, and as such give it a positive value.
What troubles us are not things, but the judgments we make about things. Thus death is nothing to be dreaded [...] but the judgment we pass on death by declaring it dreadful, that is what is dreadful 2.
Many of our judgements are negative and express anxiety, hatred or rejection of this or that thing. So all we have to do is work on these judgements, through reflection, and modify them, so that they express a full and complete acceptance of the world, of life as it is. In this way, happiness is achieved:
Don't ask for what happens to happen the way you want it to. But want things to happen as they happen and you will be happy 3.
Once we have grasped that things cannot reach us, but only our judgments about those things, we are invincible, for our judgments about those things are in our power alone. Nothing, therefore, can affect us without our consent: Disease is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless we want it so. Lameness is a hindrance to the legs, but not to the will. Say the same to yourself about every accident, and you will find that it is a hindrance to something else, but not to you
4.
We need to work on our judgements, so that we remain impassive and without sadness when a painful event affects us. We can make a positive judgement about this event. For example: my television no longer works. Great! Now I have time to read a good book instead...
This is the famous Stoic impassivity (ataraxia), which leads us to remain serene in all circumstances.
1 Enchiridion, in Marc Aurèle, Pensées pour moi-même, GF-Flammarion, Paris, 1964, p.207
2 p.209
3 p.210
4 p.211