If you continue, you will break it!🦵 Epictetus vs Epaphroditus
🔥 Can you imagine someone breaking your leg... and you calmly look at them and say, "I warned you"?
This is the true story of a slave who mastered his mind to become freer than kings.
Epictetus was born around the year 55 A.D. in Hierapolis (present-day Turkey). He was sold as a slave to Rome, owned by Epaphroditus, a trusted freedman of Emperor Nero, and one of the cruelest men in the court.
Epaphroditus was sadistic. And according to the tradition recorded by his disciple Arrian, he once began to twist Epictetus's leg, perhaps as punishment or simply to show his power.
Epictetus did not beg. He did not scream.
He only calmly warned:
"If you continue, you will break it."
And he broke it.
Epictetus, now on the ground, simply concluded:
"See? I told you."
From then on, he was lame for life. But beyond the physical harm, this moment marked something much greater:
The birth of the stoic who would teach Rome the true power of the free mind.
Epictetus understood something that many today ignore:
"We do not control what happens to us. We only control how we interpret it and how we act."
For years he was a slave, but he never allowed anyone to take away his soul.
Later, now free, he founded his school of philosophy in Nicopolis and taught emperors like Marcus Aurelius... without ever writing a single word (everything we know about him was written by his disciple Arrian).
📜 "It is not things that disturb us, but our opinion about them." — Epictetus
🛡️ How many times do you give up your peace for things you can't even control?
Stoicism is not being still.
It is being firm.
Like Epictetus... even if they break you.
Share if you think we need more minds like this today.
And fewer egos that break over any criticism.
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