The Uncontrolable (Handbook of Epictetus Sec. 1-10)

In this first Reading of Handbook of Epictetus I received an excellent impression of this piece of literature. This book could almost be like a manual for my life! In the very first part I learned that you cannot get frustrated trying to change the things that are not up to you. If you accept the things that you cannot change, you won't try to blame another person. Another thing I learned is that when something goes wrong, you can't blame none other but yourself. This also correlates with the serenity prayer in Slaughterhouse-Five when it says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…" (p. 209). When you blame other people you are actually hurting yourself morally because if you find the mistake in yourself, you will work to not make the same mistake unless you're a careless person. A related point to this theme of accepting things you cannot change is the one made in the next point (point 2). This point mentions to be careful in what you desire and what you averse. Your desire has to be of reasonable capacity of reach because "if you desire what is not up to us, you are bound to be unfortunate" (Handbook of Epictetus).

Deviating from the theme now, the fourth part mentions something about preventing that if something happens that you can't control you have an excuse to not feel bad. For example if you wanted do something as simple as going to the park, you said to yourself I want to go to the park "and to keep my choices in accord with nature" (Epictetus) so if something undesirable happens during your visit at the park you have a reason not to be annoyed because of what happened because you also wanted to keep your choices in accord with nature.