Sunday, February 28, 2016

What would this world be like if we didn't blame others for what all happens to us in our life?

What would this world be like if we didn't blame others for what all happens to us in our life?

I will be discussing Chapter 7 and specifically 7-8c "Some Things Are in Our Control"
"In our power are opinion, movement towards a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint or hindrance . . . if you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think of what is another’s, as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will accuse no man, you will do nothing . . . against your will..."
We would have a world free from excuses. Everyone would take responsibility for their own actions and everyone would get along. Those who committed a crime would own up to it, there would be no more innocent people paying for the crime they didn't commit and no unsolved mysteries. On the other hand, we wouldn't think bad of those who are successful in life. We wouldn't blame something that happened 50 to 150 years ago for the reason people live the way they do.
I have a sister that always blames everyone else for her actions. She is older than me by 6 years, she turns 36 this year. She has never lived independently. Is she capable of living independently? Absolutely, she has no aliments keeping her from doing so. She has addictions, we all have some form of addiction but we do not need to blame others when our addiction has caused a problem. She has lived off of other family members that were nice enough to allow her to stay with them. They all have had the same request, that she not bring her addictions into their home. Without fail, she will bring it in and then when it's time for her to leave for breaking the rules it is somehow the other persons fault. Time and time again others are to blame for her actions, in her opinion. I could produce and endless list of excuses that she has come up with but it's not necessary to prove my point.
In my quote from Epictetus above, he stated that what is ours is ours and another's is another's also that you will never blame another person...I feel like if my own sister followed this philosophy she would be much better off. She would be a successful person in her own right. I know her so well, I can predict the outcome about 90% of the time with her and what ever her adventure is. We came from the same two parents, grew up in the same area, hung out with the same people, and yet we took completely different paths. I take responsibility for my actions, I fight the urge to get mad at another when something is done against me or my family. Am I successful? I think so. I have a loving wife and mother to our two boys. We provide for ourselves relying on no one else. Meanwhile, she hops from place to place after setting fire to bridge of that relationship because they always have done her wrong or caused her to use drugs in their house when they originally asked that she not bring that stuff in their home. You get where I'm going with this. Not only with my sister, but the way of life in certain areas. My family and I are new to the Phoenix area. The attitudes from many different races are so extremely different from what we are used to. I love the attitude here compared to the feeling of oppression from where we have been. I just feel that if more people acted out the above quote from Epictetus, our world would be a much better place.
My word count is 665.

3 comments:

  1. What would this world be like if we didn't blame others for [all of] what all happens to us in our life?

    I will be discussing Chapter 7 and specifically 7-8c[,] "Some Things Are in Our Control[.]"

    ["In our power are opinion, movement towards a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint or hindrance . . . if you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think of what is another’s, as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will accuse no man, you will do nothing . . . against your will..."]←(This is not a proper use of a quote. You should only use quoted material when providing textual support or when emphasizing a particular way that an author stated something. In other cases, you should paraphrase and provide a source citation. You should never let the quote do the explaining or use a quote as if it were your own words, even if you provide citation information.)

    [We would have a world free from excuses. Everyone would take responsibility for their own actions and everyone would get along. Those who committed a crime would own up to it, there would be no more innocent people paying for the crime they didn't commit and no unsolved mysteries. On the other hand, we wouldn't think bad of those who are successful in life. We wouldn't blame something that happened 50 to 150 years ago for the reason people live the way they do.]←(This sounds really great, but I wonder if you understand exactly why it is the case that all of this would be the case if everyone employed Epictetus’s Stoic philosophy.)

    [I have a sister that always blames everyone else for her actions. She is older than me by 6 years, she turns 36 this year. She has never lived independently. Is she capable of living independently? Absolutely, she has no aliments keeping her from doing so. She has addictions, [but] we all have some form of addiction but [and] we do not need to blame others when our addiction has caused a problem. She has lived off of other family members that were nice enough to allow her to stay with them. They all have had the same request, that she not bring her addictions into their home. Without fail, she will bring it in and then when it's time for her to leave for breaking the rules it is somehow the other person[’]s fault. Time and time again others are to blame for her actions, in her opinion. I could produce and endless list of excuses that she has come up with but it's not necessary to prove my point.]←(Can you provide us with an account of how you think your sister ought to act in her life such that by employing Epictetus’s Stoicism, your sister would achieve all the things you believe she would? So far, I’m not convinced that her doing so would actually change her circumstances.)

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  3. In my quote from Epictetus above, he stated that what is ours is ours and another's is another's[.] [He] also [stated] that you will never blame another person[delete ellipses][.] I feel like if my own sister followed this philosophy she would be much better off. She would be a successful person in her own right. I know her so well, I can predict the outcome about 90% of the time with her and what ever her adventure is. We came from the same two parents, grew up in the same area, hung out with the same people, and yet we took completely different paths. I take responsibility for my actions, I fight the urge to get mad at another [person] when something is done against me or my family. Am I successful? I think so. I have a loving wife and mother to our two boys. We provide for ourselves relying on no one else. Meanwhile, she hops from place to place after setting fire to [the] bridge of that relationship because they always have done her wrong or caused her to use drugs in their house when they originally asked that she not bring that stuff in their home. You get where I'm going with this. [Not only with my sister, but the way of life in certain areas.]←(It’s unclear exactly what you are trying to say in this sentence.) My family and I are new to the Phoenix area. The attitudes from many different races are so extremely different from what we are used to. I love the attitude here compared to the feeling of oppression from where we have been. I just feel that if more people acted out the above quote from Epictetus, our world would be a much better place.

    (You might want to also check out my comments to the following other posts:
    1) http://philosophyexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/02/blog-post-one-philosopher-king-to.html#comment-form;
    2) http://tameals.blogspot.com/2016/02/blog-post-1-philosopher-king-to.html#comment-form)

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