Epictetus, Discourses 1.16.2

Yet we forbear to give thanks that we have not to pay the same attention to them as to ourselves, and proceed to complain against God on our own account.

 

 I declare, by Zeus and all the gods, one single fact of Nature would suffice to make him that is reverent and grateful realize the Providence of God: no great matter, I mean; take the mere fact that milk is produced from grass and cheese from milk and wool from skin. Who is it that has created or contrived these things? 

 

“No one,” he says. 

 

Oh, the depth of man's stupidity and shamelessness! 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.16

 

When I become obsessed with my own gratification, I grow resentful that the world is not providing me with all the things I arrogantly believe I deserve. 

 

I curse at my neighbor if he does not obey my every whim, and I shake my fists in protest against the various -isms and -ologies I find so offensive. Most of all, I start blaming God for the whole setup, and then go so far as to insist that denying the very existence of the Divine will somehow make my problems disappear. 

 

Yet getting red in the face or sticking my head in the sand has never made anything better; I only make myself more miserable. That lesson must be learned, even if it has to be slowly and painfully. I am, once again, confusing what I want with what I need. 

 

Nature, at any given point, offers me everything I require to be happy, and that has hardly come about by accident. If I remain dissatisfied, is it wiser for me to lash out at the circumstances, or to examine what it is I may have misunderstood about myself? 

 

However frightening the situation, I always have the power to seek deeper understanding and to practice greater love—it is never denied me. That is, after all, precisely what I was made for, and I know this by gazing directly into my human identity, as a creature of reason and of will. 

 

Beyond the goods of the soul, the goods of the body are also generously accounted for, such that, as long I pursue temperance and limit myself to the necessary, I can manage to cover my head and fill my belly through Nature’s bounty. 

 

Even where, from causes beyond my control, I may find myself cold and hungry, my capacity to act with virtue not only remains intact, but is given an even greater opportunity to be exercised in the face of such a challenge. In death, too, which must inevitably come, I can face it with dignity. 

 

That the cow eats the grass, and from it produces the milk, and that I am then permitted to partake of it, and to turn it into a fine wheel of cheese is far more than some lucky hit. Nature unfolds with balance, each creature giving something of itself to every other creature. The pieces fit together for a reason, and rather than being indignant and rejecting these obvious blessings, I am called to be grateful. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001