Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher, who presented the most accessible and applicable branch of Stoicism. Stoics believed that the highest good was in the development of virtue, an approach like that of Krishna in the Gita and Swami Vivekananda in his writings.
In his Enchiridion, Epictetus says that happiness is desiring what is in our power, and remaining detached from what is not. He writes with the same urgency and authority that Vivekananda does — what Christopher Isherwood calls “Vivekananda-English, that marvelously forceful idiom of quaintly-turned phrases and explosive exclamations” (src).
To understand what I mean, read a random section of Epictetus’s Discourses. It is a practical work, one that shares many characteristics with Hindu scriptures on the development of virtue.
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I like the way that Epictetus phrases happiness: “desiring what is in our power, and remaining detached from what is not.” I think it is a more reasonable approach for an average person to learn to be detached from the fruits of actions as the Gita advocates. At the same time, does this mean that we should not hold ourselves to lofty goals and standards? Isn’t that what fuels progress?
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