What To Follow?

Difference between desire and aversion:

"What a desire proposes is that you get what you desire and what an aversion proposes is that you not fall into what you are averse to" (PDF).

In other words, when you have a desire, you want it to come true. When you have an aversion, you don't want it.

If you don't get what you want, you are unfortunate. If you get what you don't want, you are misfortunate.

Confusing... The words tangle up. You have to be very careful to understand this concept, but it makes sense. I have the feeling that the whole t: "things that are up to you and things that aren't", will always be present. I think that's why it was in the first chapter.

Epictetus also mentions nature a lot. The second section talks about the natural course of things. Death and illness are aversions to us. We desire to live free from them, but they will eventually come: "So detach your aversion from everything not up to us, and transfer it to what is against nature among the things that are up to us" (PDF). This is similar to the familiar saying: don't cry over spilled milk. You can't control the fact that the milk spilled. If you detach your aversion from the fact that it's already spilled, you can be unfortunate but not misfortunate.

Desires are normally just that, desires. There's no way to full-fill them. Therefore, it's better to not have have them.

Wait a second. I'm lost. This goes against everything we learn in school. Am I not suppose to desire anything? Let me go back to the whole "what is up to me" thing. For example, I want good grades:

It's something that's up to me and that I can control. But then it says, "none of the things that are up to us which it would be good to desire, will be available to you" (PDF). This is saying: either getting good grades is a bad desire, or it's not available. It's different from what we're taught but it's logical. If you don't look for anything, you won't be disappointed. Even though it makes sense, this idea can't survive in our world. We're taught that life's about taking opportunities and risks. The text encourages us not to follow desire but impulse. Today in ethics I was learning about not following impulses. This is a point in life when being critical is important. It's like deciding what news to believe, only here, I'm deciding what lesson I should apply in my life. I decide to apply this desire lesson in only the things I can't control. In other words, I decided to block aversions and only desire things that are up to me.