| Epictetus was born into slavery and he spent the next thirty years in that institution—the Roman kind, which meant he was considered property, had no rights, and could be abused or killed without legal consequence. He wasn't even given a name—Epictetus just means acquired one. He was tortured. And when he finally found freedom, he was almost immediately exiled by a tyrannical emperor. You know in Les Mis where she sings about how the dream she dreamed was so much different than the hell she was living? That was basically Epictetus' real life story. He was treated like an animal, designed to be used up and then cast aside. While no one would say that Epictetus was the lightest and most fun of the Stoics, considering what he went through, his writing and his philosophy could have been—perhaps should have been—a lot darker. He had every right to be bitter. Every right to be angry. Every right to be a nihilist…after all, the world he had lived in was nihilist and cruel and dark. But instead, Epictetus was funny. He was inspirational. He was strong. We have a Daily Stoic video that focuses on his keys to resilience (it's worth watching here), but the main reason he wasn't broken by his experiences was a simple Stoic insight. The key to life, he said, was not to dream for things to be a certain way but to dream for them to be the way they were. To be grateful that you had the fate you had. To be the best you are capable of being inside it (our How To Read Epictetus Guide will help you to apply this wisdom to better your life, by the way). If anyone ever had an excuse to give up, to grow cynical, to hate the world—it was Epictetus. But he chose something different. And so can we. No matter what we're going through, we always retain the power to respond with virtue, with humor, with grace, to take wisdom from it. That's real strength. That's real freedom.  P.S. There are people who've talked about how to be resilient, then there's Epictetus, who mastered the art of resilience and taught others how to do it, too. In this video, we share his keys to resilience and how you can use them to remain whole and unbroken even during the most trying of circumstances. Watch it over on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel today! *** | 
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