Next, if you are a member of a city council, remember that you are a councilor; if young, that you are young; if old, that you are old; if a father, that you are a father.
For each of these names, if properly considered, suggests the acts appropriate to it. But if you go and disparage your brother, I tell you that you are forgetting who you are and what is your name.
I say, if you were a smith and used your hammer wrong, you would have forgotten the smith; but if you forget the brother's part and turn into an enemy instead of a brother, are you going to imagine that you have undergone no change?
If instead of man, a gentle and sociable creature, you have become a dangerous, aggressive, and biting brute, have you lost nothing? Do you think you must lose cash in order to suffer damage? Does no other sort of loss damage man?
If you lost skill in grammar or music you would count the loss as damage; if you are going to lose honor and dignity and gentleness, do you count it as nothing?
Surely those other losses are due to some external cause outside our will, but these are due to ourselves. Those qualities it is no honor to have and no dishonor to lose, but these you cannot lack or lose without dishonor, reproach, and disaster.
For each of these names, if properly considered, suggests the acts appropriate to it. But if you go and disparage your brother, I tell you that you are forgetting who you are and what is your name.
I say, if you were a smith and used your hammer wrong, you would have forgotten the smith; but if you forget the brother's part and turn into an enemy instead of a brother, are you going to imagine that you have undergone no change?
If instead of man, a gentle and sociable creature, you have become a dangerous, aggressive, and biting brute, have you lost nothing? Do you think you must lose cash in order to suffer damage? Does no other sort of loss damage man?
If you lost skill in grammar or music you would count the loss as damage; if you are going to lose honor and dignity and gentleness, do you count it as nothing?
Surely those other losses are due to some external cause outside our will, but these are due to ourselves. Those qualities it is no honor to have and no dishonor to lose, but these you cannot lack or lose without dishonor, reproach, and disaster.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.10
The hucksters, wherever they may stand along the political spectrum, tell me that it’s all about the jobs. More income means more spending, and more spending means more profits.
Where do these profits go? I’m told they support the “economy”, though I have never seemed to benefit from such a windfall. The experts assure me that an abstraction matters more than an actual person.
“Did you suffer alone, homeless, and without a dime? It’s okay. You were a statistical outlier. We didn’t actually mean for that to happen.”
Does that sound familiar? A government bureaucracy cares nothing for you. Your family and your friends, if you are lucky enough to have them, are the only people who might care for you. Start from the bottom. People matter, not slogans.
“If you had just worked as hard as we did, you would be right where we are now!”
They are confusing their merit with their fortune. Hard work didn’t make them rich. A combination of guile and circumstances made them rich. Don’t fight with them; they will never admit it.
Sorry, I don’t think jobs are so terribly important—I think vocations are so terribly important. Each of us is given a part in the workings of this world, and each of us is called to contribute according to our own unique gifts.
The merit is in the doing, not in the spoils. The janitor is just a critical as the CEO, and the only reason you would think otherwise is because of a confusion about the most basic values of life.
Be a councilor, if you must. Be a fiery young man, or a silent old man. Be a burly blacksmith, or a fancy scholar. It makes no difference. What have you done with the skills God gave you? Did you waste them for mere gratification, or did you use them to love without restraint? There is no middle ground here.
It is tragic when a craftsman loses his ability to practice his trade, but it is a travesty when a man abandons his willingness to practice justice and charity. The one may well be involuntary, while the other is most certainly voluntary.
They say Stoicism is a philosophy of cold indifference. No, it is rather a philosophy of compassionate indifference, caring for the moral good before any worldly gains. The true waste is when a man strives for excellence, and then he fails at his only true task, that of being a kind and decent fellow.
You have just one job. It’s that simple.
Your work is not at the office, or on the factory floor. Your work is wherever you come across another person in need. You get no pay for doing what is right. You win by affirming your human nature, which leaves nothing else to be desired.
The hucksters, wherever they may stand along the political spectrum, tell me that it’s all about the jobs. More income means more spending, and more spending means more profits.
Where do these profits go? I’m told they support the “economy”, though I have never seemed to benefit from such a windfall. The experts assure me that an abstraction matters more than an actual person.
“Did you suffer alone, homeless, and without a dime? It’s okay. You were a statistical outlier. We didn’t actually mean for that to happen.”
Does that sound familiar? A government bureaucracy cares nothing for you. Your family and your friends, if you are lucky enough to have them, are the only people who might care for you. Start from the bottom. People matter, not slogans.
“If you had just worked as hard as we did, you would be right where we are now!”
They are confusing their merit with their fortune. Hard work didn’t make them rich. A combination of guile and circumstances made them rich. Don’t fight with them; they will never admit it.
Sorry, I don’t think jobs are so terribly important—I think vocations are so terribly important. Each of us is given a part in the workings of this world, and each of us is called to contribute according to our own unique gifts.
The merit is in the doing, not in the spoils. The janitor is just a critical as the CEO, and the only reason you would think otherwise is because of a confusion about the most basic values of life.
Be a councilor, if you must. Be a fiery young man, or a silent old man. Be a burly blacksmith, or a fancy scholar. It makes no difference. What have you done with the skills God gave you? Did you waste them for mere gratification, or did you use them to love without restraint? There is no middle ground here.
It is tragic when a craftsman loses his ability to practice his trade, but it is a travesty when a man abandons his willingness to practice justice and charity. The one may well be involuntary, while the other is most certainly voluntary.
They say Stoicism is a philosophy of cold indifference. No, it is rather a philosophy of compassionate indifference, caring for the moral good before any worldly gains. The true waste is when a man strives for excellence, and then he fails at his only true task, that of being a kind and decent fellow.
You have just one job. It’s that simple.
Your work is not at the office, or on the factory floor. Your work is wherever you come across another person in need. You get no pay for doing what is right. You win by affirming your human nature, which leaves nothing else to be desired.
—Reflection written in 8/2001
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