Epictetus, The Handbook 7: A Handsome Horse

Be not elated at an excellence which is not your own. If the horse in his pride were to say, ‘I am handsome’, we could bear with it. But when you say with pride, ‘I have a handsome horse’, know that the good horse is the ground of your pride.

You ask then what you can call your own. ‘The answer is—the way you deal with your impressions. ‘Therefore when you deal with your impressions in accord with nature, then you may be proud in deed, for your pride will be in a good which is your own.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 6 (tr Matheson)

Though I intended only to have a friendly and open-minded discussion, I once sent a very successful professional into fits of frustration when I suggested that a degree or a job were not to our own merit.

“Well, that’s just silly. I earned my degree from all my hard work, and I earned my job because I proved I was qualified.”

“You hopefully did learn something at school, and hopefully you worked at it, and those actions are to your merit. But the degree itself was granted to you by someone else.”

“But I earned it!”

“No, they decided you earned it. Were they not just as free to give it to someone else who didn’t work at all?”

“They would never do that. They’re an important school.”

“Perhaps. But that’s entirely up to them, and not you. The status that goes with your degree, or any honor, like a job, or an award, is something other people give you, not something you gave yourself. Even if you have done something well, your boss could still fire you.”

“Then I’d take the whole firm to court.”

“Then it’s up to the courts, and not you.”

If we truly understand what is our own, and what belongs to others, we begin to strip away all the layers upon layers of externals that we had previously thought defined us. It’s like pulling up carpeting and finding a beautiful hardwood floor underneath.

It’s not that we aren’t worth anything at all. Quite the contrary, the Stoic believes deeply in the dignity of each and every person. Instead, it means redefining what gives us that dignity, which is all about what I do, and not what is done to me.

I have at various times thought that I was defined by my friends, or my job, or where I came from, and I still catch myself slipping into that sort of thinking. I may bemoan my lowly status in the world and compare myself to others far more “successful” than myself.

Then I just need to remember that I need to have a very different concept of success. Have I faced my world with understanding, with fairness, with courage, with self-control? No amount of external trappings can give me such things, because only I can give them to myself. 

Written in `11/2011