You are like an actor in a play...

Donald's Commentary on The Handbook of Epictetus #17

Remember that you are an actor in a play, the character of which is determined by the Playwright: if He wishes the play to be short, it is short; if long, it is long; if He wishes you to play the part of a beggar, remember to act even this role adroitly; and so if your role be that of a cripple, an official, or a layman. For this is your business, to play admirably the role assigned you; but the selection of that role is Another’s.

Commentary

Life is like a play. You’ve been assigned a part and placed on stage. How well you perform your role is up to you, though. Whether it’s long or short is in the hands of fate. You might end up playing anything from a beggar to a statesman, or just a private individual with no specific job. They’re all just different roles that you can fill either badly or well.

What Epictetus says here is strikingly similar to a saying attributed to Aristo of Chios, one of the early Greek Stoics.

Aristo of Chios said that the goal [telos] was to live with indifference [adiaphoros] towards things between virtue and vice, not leaving any variation among them, but being equally disposed towards all of them. For the wise person is like a good actor, who, whether he takes on the role of Thersites or Agamemnon, plays each one appropriately. — Diogenes Laertius

Thersites and Agamemnon are two very different characters in Homer’s Iliad. Thersites is a deformed cripple, who plays a minor role, and is made to seem ridiculous, whereas Agamemnon is the King of Kings, ruler of Mycenae, and leader of the expedition against Troy.