Before, During, After

I sometimes regret the things I've done and said because I hadn't carefully analyzed what would happen in the aftermath. "For each action, consider what leads up to it and what follows it, and approach it in the light of that. Otherwise you will come to it enthusiastically at first, since you have not borne in mind any of what will happen next, but later when difficulties turn up you will give up disgracefully." (19) A perfect example of this is when last week our P.E. class had to run the mile. Before we started running, all I did was stretch a little, and then the mile began. At first, I did a fast run until I couldn't keep up the my rhythm anymore. After about half way, I got very tired and started to slow down until I almost had to walk at the end of it from how tired I was. This shows how I acted without thinking. I didn't analyze that I would have to be running for more time than I could handle at that speed, and therefore my end result was not what I wanted it to be. This happens many times in life and I regret each one. It almost seems as if I don't learn from my previous mistakes because I keep on making the same mistakes. The same thing sometimes happens to me with teachers. They say something I don't like, and my natural reaction is to say what I think, but this has led me to bad situations in the past.

There was one other thing that Epictetus said that interested me. Many times people don't care for things that don't happen. "For example, when someone else's little slave boy breaks his cup we are ready to say."It's one of those things that just happen." Certainly, then, when your own cup is broken you should be just the way you were when the other person's was broken." (18) This is something that I HATE about the world. The majority of the people that I know are very selfish and egocentric. Everyday we hear terrible stories about deaths and such, but only rarely does it actually affect us. Then, when something we hear everyday happens to us, we can't believe how unlucky we are. I think that this is really bad because in a sense people think that those things won't happen to them, while in reality, they happen to everyone. I also can't believe that we let hunger occur everyday, while we have more than plenty food. This should really be fixed.