Epictetus, The Handbook 33: Right Relations

Appropriate acts are in general measured by the relations they are concerned with.

'He is your father.' This means you are called on to take care of him, give way to him in all things, bear with him if he reviles or strikes you.

'But he is a bad father.'

Well, have you any natural claim to a good father? No, only to a father.

'My brother wrongs me.'

Be careful then to maintain the relation you hold to him, and do not consider what he does, but what you must do if your purpose is to keep in accord with nature.

For no one shall harm you, without your consent; you will only be harmed, when you think you are harmed. You will only discover what is proper to expect from neighbor, citizen, or praetor, if you get into the habit of looking at the relations implied by each.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 30 (tr Matheson)

In the bittersweet days of my youth, no party was ever complete without hearing Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” Along with other phrases, such as “Where’s the beef?” and “Don’t have a cow, man!” they became the slogans for a whole decade.

The young, of course, are prone to feeling independent, headstrong, and demanding, but I saw the absurd reach of not only the phrase, but also the whole associated attitude, when, many years later, I asked a neighbor to move a car that had blocked me in. “Uh uh!” came the impassioned reply. “What have you done for me lately?”

Stoicism would remind us that we are tempted to define something by what is done to it, when we should rather define it by what it does. Grammarians also tell us that the active voice is usually stronger and clearer than the passive voice. When teaching political philosophy, I always asked students to distinguish between rights, what others owe to me, and responsibilities, what I owe to others.

Should I see any human relationship in terms of my entitlement to be treated a certain way, or my obligation to treat others a certain way? Remember that the former is outside of my power, and therefore should never be anything that determines or defines me. The latter is completely with my power, and does in fact determine and define how well or how poorly I have chosen to live.

A Stoic, understanding the priority of action over passion, and of how I think and act over how others think and act, will now have a very different view of what it means to be a parent, a spouse, or a friend.

I always knew deep down that my parents were some of the most caring and committed ones you could find, but that didn’t stop me from complaining about some of the things they asked me to do. What I was not seeing was that my own preferences hardly defined their responsibility as parents, and that what I wanted given to me was not necessarily what they needed to give.

My first attempt at finding that companion for life was marred by much the same problem. I remained in good graces as long as I did what was useful, and when this was no longer the case, I buckled under the weight of the loss. Note that each of us defined our relationship by what the other did.

A true friendship of any sort is based on the ability to give, and not just to receive, to love, and not just to be loved, and to follow through with a commitment that never has terms or conditions attached to it.

This is why I see red when anyone tells me that she is happy being a wife because her husband is faithful, or happy being a father because his son is so obedient, or happy being a friend to someone who always offers a shoulder to cry on. I rather ask myself if I could still be a good husband if my wife was disloyal, if I could still be a good father if my son was a delinquent, or still be a good friend to someone who wasn’t always reliable. 

I could indeed have an angry father, or a thoughtless wife, or an ungrateful son. None of that should determine whether I am a forgiving son, a dedicated husband, or a caring father. If a friend has treated me poorly, this hardly allows me to treat him poorly.

Stoicism asks me to live this way not just out of obligation, but assures me that this is also the path to true contentment. As always, I can be happy if I rule myself, and I make myself miserable when I let myself be ruled by others.

Written in 9/1999