Voyage
Epictetus advises, “As in a voyage, when the ship is at anchor, if you go on shore to get water, you may amuse yourself with picking up a shellfish or a truffle in your way, but your thoughts ought to be bent toward the ship, and perpetually attentive, lest the captain should call, and then you must leave all these things, that you may not have to be carried on board the vessel, bound like a sheep; thus likewise in life, if, instead of a truffle or shellfish, such a thing as a wife or a child be granted you, there is no objection.” A voyage is emblematic of life. Epictetus recommends that a man should not commit his life to trivial things which shellfish epitomize. A ship is metaphoric of the course of life, from which a man should not deviate in terms of his devotion.
“The Will of Nature”
Epictetus expounds, “The will of nature may be learned from things upon which we are all agreed. As when our neighbor’s boy has broken a cup, or the like, we are ready at once to say, “These are casualties that will happen”; be assured, then, that when your own cup is likewise broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken." The will signifies inevitable eventualities in life such as mortality. When such misfortunes befall, a person should interpret them in the same way he or she interprets them when they occur in other’s lives.
Physician
Epictetus recommends, “In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit, indeed, careless of the consequences, and when these are developed, you will shamefully desist. “I would conquer at the Olympic Games.”…You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; in heat and cold; you must drink no cold water, and sometimes no wine—in a word, you must give yourself up to your trainer as to a physician.” Surrendering to a trainer in the same way one would ‘to a physician’ underscores devotion to the trainer’s guidelines which would guarantee the athlete’s triumph. An athlete should full trust the trainer in the same way a patient trusts his or her doctor.
