E

GET RID OF YOUR STUFF

For property is poverty and fear; only to have

possessed something and to have let go of it means

carefree ownership.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE

pictetus was born a slave but eventually received his freedom. In
time, he came to enjoy the trappings of the good life—or at least
the Stoic version of it. He had emperors attend his lectures, trained
many students, and made a decent living. With his hard-earned
money, he bought a nice iron lamp, which he kept burning in a small
shrine in his home.
One evening, he heard a noise in the hallway by his front door.
Rushing down, he found that a thief had stolen the prized lamp. Like
any person who feels attached to their stuff, he was disappointed and
surprised and violated. Someone had come into his home and stolen
something that belonged to him.
But then Epictetus caught himself. He remembered his teachings.
“Tomorrow, my friend,” he said to himself, “you will find an
earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has.” For the rest
of his life, he kept this cheaper earthen lamp instead. Upon his death,
an admirer, entirely missing the point of Epictetus’s disdain for
material items, purchased it for 3,000 drachmas.
One of Seneca’s most powerful metaphors is the slaveowner
owned by his slaves, or the wealthy man whose vast estates lord over
him rather than the other way around (in modern times, we have our