Wow!!! A WhatsApp message from Epictetus?!! The ancient Hellenistic philosopher?! I simply couldn’t believe my eyes. How did he get my number? How does he know me? I mean, how does he have a phone!
The message itself was perplexing:
Hello Avaneesh,
Come to Nicopolis in the year 100 AD. We need to talk.
Regards,
Epic
There was no time to think. Yet, I couldn’t help but imagine all the great things I could talk about with him. To make friends with Epictetus… to know him, ask all my questions, hear his answers in his own voice…
Is it really him? Is this a prank? I checked the message again. There in the profile picture in all his glory was the great Stoic philosopher. As if it wasn’t proof enough, the lame thinker proudly held his familiar crutch. The face was unmistakably Epictetus. Now, there really was no time to think.
To enter into a dialogue with the great philosopher… all the wisdom Mr. Epic is going to impart on me… then to see the look on the people’s faces when I tell them about this experience… Now that I am going to be friends with him, I think I can call him Epic. What does he want to talk about with me about? Does he want me to become the next great stoic?! This is as if my sublime destiny is unraveling before me. Aww… stop it! This is not the time to think! It is time to time-travel.
Last summer, when I ordered the brand new time-machine, my brother mocked me saying that it is going to sit in my room accumulating dust. For a while I thought he was right, because one needs to be invited by someone in order to time travel. And who was going to invite me for a time-travel! But now who has the last laugh? Ha ha ha!
In a matter of seconds, the time-machine took me to the place and time I wished to go.
Nicopolis in the first century AD is a bustling city. The city that gave a home to Epictetus, where he founded a great school. And I waited with excitement, brimming with expectations… expectations of meeting the genius…
Epictetus never turned up!
I waited for hours, but in vain. I was disappointed, then frustrated and then angry. How could he do this to me??!! He said we needed to talk. And is this how a genius keeps his word? I was furious.
Then suddenly, something moved…
It was then that I noticed the painted porch beside which I have been standing since I arrived in Nicopolis. A tall and elegant porch! I looked at it. On it, as if by magic, appeared the words:
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
As though the porch was talking to me, I retorted with anger “Yeah right! It makes total sense to someone who was kept waiting for hours by a man who is supposed to be true to his words!”
The porch was in fact talking to me. It read again,
“The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others.”
I opened my mouth to react… but then I thought, ‘Wait… the porch has a point! Whether Epictetus comes or doesn’t come is completely up to him. I have no control over it. Come to think of it, there are in fact many things which are not in my control. But… but this is not a happy thing to know…
As if it could hear even my thoughts, the painted porch continued,
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
I could feel myself slowly opening up, but not fully. Questions kept appearing in my mind, “This is easier said than done. How will this become my truth… my living reality? What is stopping me from being happy?”
One by one, letters appeared on the painted porch to make just one word:
“EXPECTATIONS”
Like a bolt of lightning it struck me! A veil has been lifted. And in that moment, everything became clear to me. I could see my entire life in that one word. All my life I have been obsessing over what is not in my control. Expecting from others and the world…things not in my control. This made my life events uncontrollable, and I felt helpless and frustrated. The same happened now. Expecting that Epictetus would come, enrich me with his thoughts… expecting to make my friends jealous… expecting that Epictetus would become my new friend… expecting… expecting… a life full of expectations from the other…
Aha! Not anymore…
When my expectations cease, I will no longer be restrained, no more slave to the world… I will be free and realize my true inner power.
Standing in front of that elegant painted porch, I had a bigger realization. That I did in fact have a conversation with Epictetus. Well not in his flesh and blood, but in thought and soul! Transcending time and space, the great Stoic spoke to me. His profound voice was heard loud and clear through twenty centuries. By not coming to meet me, he instilled in me the profound stoic message to stop having expectations from the uncontrollable, and to focus on my singular source of happiness… my thoughts and actions.
Through his absence, Epictetus emphatically proclaimed his presence!
I felt profoundly happy and strangely light… as if a weight has been lifted off from within me.
The next moment, every structure in Nicopolis started to crumble and disappear one after another. Yet, I didn’t panic or worry. I was calm and simply let things happen around me. I could accept the events as they were. Eventually the elegant painted porch also disappeared. I remained… smiling wide looking at the vastness around me, basking in the glory of the new truth… my living reality.
Then my shoulders started shaking, rather dramatically. With a start I opened my eyes… My mother was staring at me with a quizzical smile on her face “It is 7 in the morning. Don’t you have a meeting? And DON’T EXPECT me to wake you up every day like this!”
Lying in my bed in that sleepy haze, I smiled and said (to myself) “Never again will I, mother…”
= = =
Epictetus (55-135 AD) was a Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave, but was educated by his rich masters. He was freed as a young man, and began teaching philosophy in Rome. When the emperor banished all philosophers from Rome, he went to Nicopolis, Greece, where he lived until his death.
To read a text by Epictetus on inner freedom, see the Agora website at:
https://www.philopractice.org/web/inner-freedom#Epictetus