Wealth and Possessions
This week you are going to work through one of the most practically charged questions in Stoic life: what to do with wealth and possessions. The passages move you from a careful first principle (neither dismiss money nor be ruled by it) through the logic of ownership, freedom, and genuine goodness, arriving on Saturday at a precise technical distinction that changes how you relate to everything you own. Each day builds on the last, so take the reflections in order.
Passage
SOME THINGS are under our control, while others are not under our control. Under our control are conception, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, everything that is not our own doing. Furthermore, the things under our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unimpeded; while the things not under our control are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own. Remember, therefore, that if what is naturally slavish you think to be free, and what is not your own to be your own, you will be hampered, will grieve, will be in turmoil, and will blame both gods and men; while if you think only what is your own to be your own, and what is not your own to be, as it really is, not your own, then no one will ever be able to exert compulsion upon you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, will find fault with no one, will do absolutely nothing against your will, you will have no personal enemy, no one will harm you, for neither is there any harm that can touch you. With such high aims, therefore, remember that you must bestir yourself with no slight effort to lay hold of them, but you will have to give up some things entirely, and defer others for the time being. But if you wish for these things also, and at the same time for both office and wealth, it may be that you will not get even these latter, because you aim also at the former, and certainly you will fail to get the former, which alone bring freedom and happiness. Make it, therefore, your study at the very outset to say to every harsh external impression, “You are an external impression and not at all what you appear to be.” After that examine it and test it by these rules which you have, the first and most important of which is this: Whether the impression has to do with the things which are under our control, or with those which are not under our control; and, if it has to do with some one of the things not under our control, have ready to hand the answer, “It is nothing to me.”
— Epictetus, Handbook 1
Reflection
Today Epictetus lays down the architecture that the whole week depends on. Property sits explicitly in the 'not under our control' column alongside reputation and office. He is not saying property is bad; he is saying it is not yours in the deepest sense, because it can be taken. What is truly yours are the faculties you use to respond to whatever happens to your property. The stark claim at the end of the passage is worth sitting with: aiming at both wealth and freedom at the same time may cost you both, because the effort of grasping the external keeps loosening your grip on the internal.
Go deeper
Epictetus says that if you chase office and wealth alongside the inner goods, you may end up with neither: where in your current life are you splitting your attention between controlling outcomes that are not truly in your control and cultivating the faculties that actually are?
Practice
The Impression Test
Today, each time a financial thought or worry about a possession surfaces (a bill, a price, a comparison with someone else's things), pause and apply Epictetus's test out loud or in a whisper: 'Is this under my control, or not?' If not, say: 'It is nothing to me.' Do this at least five times across the day and note at day's end which thoughts were hardest to release.