Epictetus, The Handbook 41: Right Possessions

. . . For your body take just so much as your bare need requires, such as food, drink, clothing, house, servants, but cut down all that tends to luxury and outward show. . . .

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 33 (tr Matheson)

I was pleasantly surprised the other day to overhear someone uttering those wonderful words of G.K. Chesterton:

There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

The only problem was that the man was actually wearing a Rolex, and had just been bragging about his new country club membership. I suspect he was applying this rule to others, though not to himself.

The Stoic hardly needs to be a pauper, and circumstances may even put him in high places. What will set him apart is his attitude toward his possessions, such that he seeks only to make use of what is necessary, and he recognizes that Nature has offered even these things only on loan.

I have never been rich, and I’m fairly sure I never will be. Yet whenever I have had even a bit more than I need, I always seem to raise the bar on what I think I need. Necessity grows into luxury, and I begin to confuse need with greed. It becomes far too easy to condemn the rich, but the problem has never been being rich at all, but thinking rich.

I find it very helpful to perform a certain thought exercise every so often, which then spills over into the way I choose to live. When circumstances seem oppressive, I ask myself what I really need to be happy. What is quite enlightening and useful is how sparse and humble that list can really be.

I push the limits as far as I can. “But without the clothes on my back I will freeze, and without some food in my belly I will starve!” Then I’ll freeze and starve. Death will come in any event, and the only thing I really need at all is to face such things rightly.

I recently caught myself saying that I couldn’t live without my music. Of course I could live without it, and if you took away my ridiculous record collection, I could play it myself, and if you took away my instruments, I could still whistle a tune. Keep me from whistling, and I can play music in my own head, which is what I do most of the day in any event. I am, of course, my only possession.

I take this to the point where I recognize that if I can’t imagine being without something, and be willing to give it up at a moment’s notice, I’m wanting it too much. I will thankfully take what Nature offers me to live well, but I should take no more. If I also remember that I am only borrowing such goods, I will hardly resent returning them. This can transform me from a creature of entitlement to a creature of gratitude. 

Written in 6/2009