Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.4

“But he will not leave me as his heir.” 

 

What? Did I forget that none of these things was mine? In what sense do we call them “mine”? Only as we call “mine” the pallet in an inn. If then the innkeeper dies and leaves you the pallets, well and good; if he leaves them to another, that man will have them, and you will look for another. 

 

If you do not find one you will sleep on the ground, only do so with a good cheer, snoring the while, and remembering that it is among rich men and kings and emperors that tragedies find room, and that no poor man fills a part in a tragedy except as one of the chorus. 

 

But kings begin with a prelude of good things: 

 

“Crown high the halls.”

 

and then about the third or fourth act comes—

 

“O Cithaeron, why didst thou receive me?” —from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

I recall several times when people kindly warned me about how all our worst wounds are self-inflicted, the result of wanting to possess things we never had a right to claim. Rather than cursing the gods, they suggested, it would be better to reflect upon ourselves. 

 

I would nod politely, at some level aware that they were right, and yet I couldn’t get around the practical obstacle of having to abandon my worldly pretensions. Sometimes the school of hard knocks must press home the lessons first offered by sound advice.

 

Wherever my happiness relies on anything I expect to be granted through my circumstances, I’m setting myself up for the fall. Whether I am flattering a Caesar or sucking up to the boss, the act of seeking advancement by currying favor only reflects poorly on my own integrity and puts my life at the mercy of another’s whims. 

 

The trouble starts when I demand to be gratified. It grows while I scheme and squabble. It reaches its disastrous conclusion as the very conditions I crave have now swept me away. 

 

As it turns out, the difficulties I must contend with are about my unwillingness to take charge of myself, not about defeating anyone else. 

 

Some read up on their Greek tragedies so they can make clever comments at cocktail parties, when the best reason to become familiar with the stories about Agamemnon, Oedipus, or Medea might be to question our motives for even going to those cocktail parties. 

 

What is there to win by playing these games of fortune? More importantly, what do we stand to lose by being so puffed up with pride? 

 

I take note at what kind of people fall foul of fate, and I steer myself in another direction. I refer again to one of my favorite passages from Boethius: 

 

You are shuddering now at the thought of club and knife, but if you had set out on the path of this life with empty pockets, you would whistle your way past any highwayman. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Benigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending his Children to the Gods (1784)