You Don't Own That

"Anything that can be prevented, taken away or coerced is not a person's own. But those things that can't be blocked are their own." (Epictetus, Discourses, 3.2.4)

Think for a moment about the the things you work so hard for. Think also about someone you may know who works so much harder for something you would consider less, beyond daily living. How many scrape and claw and fight and sweat and grieve over one model of car or piece of electronics? There are some amazing refrigerators out there, some with computers built right into the door. Truth is, like any other refrigerator, it's going to break down. Something is bound to stop working. The only difference between that one and mine is that mine is going to be less expensive to repair.

But what is really yours? What do you really own? As it stands, you may have forgotten how some bank somewhere might actually own all your stuff. It's not yours. Yet. The car I've been driving for years will finally be my own possession early next year.

What about your status, or your health or your relationships? Are those yours? How can these things be our if they can be taken away? Without notice?

What do we own? Our lives? Not for long.

As long as we live, we are entrusted to manage what is on loan to us.

"Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small-small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead." (Marcus Aurelius)