What Is in Our Power
The Teaching
Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, reputation, command, and whatever are not our own actions.
Now, the things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others.
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
Commentary
Epictetus's fundamental distinction, what is 'up to us' and what is not, is the Stoic version of the Gita's teaching on action without attachment. Both locate freedom in the interior relationship to circumstances, not in the circumstances themselves.
Epictetus was a slave. His teaching emerged from the most extreme possible test of this principle, and it worked. The Buddha's Fire Sermon diagnoses the same disease (grasping and aversion) and prescribes the same cure.
'Wish the things which happen to be as they are', this is the Taoist going with the grain of reality, the Sufi tawakkul, the Gita's 'let go of the fruits of action.' The same wisdom in Greek philosophical dress.