Epictetus, The Handbook 12: Borrowed, Not Owned

Never say of anything, 'I lost it', but say, 'I gave it back'. Has your child died? It was given back. Has your wife died? She was given back. Has your estate been taken from you? Was not this also given back?

But you say, 'He who took it from me is wicked'. What does it matter to you through whom the Giver asked it back? As long as He gives it you, take care of it, but not as your own; treat it as passers-by treat an inn.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 11 (tr Matheson)

I remember those early years of the 1980’s, when anything touched by Michael Jackson seemed to turn into gold. The first single off of Thriller was a pleasant duet with Paul McCartney called “The Girl is Mine”, and I recall thinking one day, after I had heard it on the radio for the umpteenth time, that this was an odd phrase. How could anyone really “belong” to anyone else anyway? Isn’t this the sort of thinking that can get us into quite a bit of trouble? I would occasionally think the same thing about other love songs that used that other cliché phrase, “I need you.”

The catchiness of harmless pop songs aside, we do often take such ideas quite seriously. We think we own things, people, or situations, and then in our need for them, are devastated at their loss. The irony is that when I say I own something, I too readily define myself by what I say is mine. I come to depend upon what I possess in order to be myself. I am now hardly the owner, but I am the one owned through my need.

I understand this all too well, because I painted myself into that corner, both personally and professionally. Only a bit of Stoic clarity, to take that Stoic Turn, is needed to avoid so much loss and grief.

Consider that I can never lose what was not mine to begin with. Consider also that the only thing I can really call mine is myself. Put these two principles together, and we have the Stoic solution to loss.

We often think that we balance ourselves precariously between happiness and misery by frantically trying to keep control over the things we think are ours: our friends, family, reputation, career, wealth, amusements, or influence. Yet none of those things ever belonged to us, or were a part of us. Their comings and goings usually have little to do with us.

They most certainly do not define us, or fulfill us. Only what I think, choose, or do is fully my own. All the externals we crave will come and go, and then we grieve. All the internals we neglect can never be lost, and we would be happy if we only depended upon what is truly our own.

This hardly means we do not love others, or give ourselves fully to them. It is our own love we own, not those we love. I need never bemoan the changing state of the world around me, of all the things Nature lent me, because I still possess the good I chose to do. It is in this sense that you can never defeat the Stoic. He owns only himself, and borrows everything else.

Written in 12/2011