"Death is not terrible" (from "Greeks to Geeks")

From Rohan Healey's Greeks to Geeks: Practical Stoicism for the 21st Century:

"Death is not terrible: Else it would have appeared so to Socrates

Epictetus: 'Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Someone who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.'

Basically what Epictetus is saying here is pretty obvious stuff, death is one of the most important, and of course inevitable aspects of all life in the natural world, and being so could surely not be something to be worried about, for if it were, as Epictetus says, it would have appeared so to Socrates . . . So many of us spend our lives in fear, afraid of death and so become afraid of life, lose the fear of death and so become afraid of life, lose the fear of death and life can become much more pleasant. Your opinion is the most powerful tool you possess, and your choice is your only true freedom."