The Stoic Reframe to Deal with Loss of Any Kind

The Stoics had a hard but freeing way of thinking about loss. Nothing is really yours. Everything you enjoy is on loan, and grief hurts less when you stop treating what was taken as something you owned outright.

This episode works from one of the more confronting lines in Epictetus:

“Under no circumstances ever say ‘I have lost something,’ only ‘I returned it.’ Did a child of yours die? No, it was returned. Your wife died? No, she was returned. ‘My land was confiscated.’ No, it too was returned.”

It is a lot to sit with. I try to take it seriously without pretending it makes loss painless.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

So a very important question for you to contemplate. I'm not sure if you've ever thought about this before. Where have all of the best things in your life come from? Did you create them? Did you make them happen? But even if you did make them happen, from where did they appear? Did you create all of your relationships, all of your best relationships from scratch? I know that you took certain actions, you followed certain protocols, whether conscious or unconscious, to make your relationships good or bad. But when you were born, you didn't plan out who you would meet beforehand and what they would look like and how they would act in your presence. They were presented to you, but from where? What about family members, children, your favorite material possessions? The truth is, and many of us don't like to admit this, even though we have some agency in life, so much of the things we enjoy are given to us by the universe or fortune or nature. This is not a depressing thought, actually. It's a miraculous thought. If you deeply recognise the facts that life, as you know it, isn't permanent, ever changing, and that everything we enjoy is in some sense a gift presented to us by nature or the universe, you won't suffer the same way when those things are taken back by it. It's only when we latch onto things and we say this is mine, I own this, and forget that we are borrowing it. It's similar to a toddler going to a play center that is full of toys for the toddler to play with, and then getting upset that he or she can't take them home. From the outside looking in, you are thinking, why would you be upset? This place was designed for you to have a lot of fun. This place was designed to make you happy, and yet you're not happy. You're not happy because you think those things that were there for you to enjoy are yours. And because there are certain limits on how you use them and where you take them, you are now very upset. A lot of us are grown-up toddlers in this way. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus encourages us to keep the source from which things arise in our own mind when we contemplate losing them. So the untrained individual will receive a gift from the universe, and that gift could be anything material possession, a nice day, a beautiful relationship, certain physical attributes, anything. And when that gift expires, they will say to themselves, I have lost it. I have lost my thing. This is an irrational perspective because the person who's saying I have lost my thing is like that toddler who is saying when they leave the play center that I have lost my thing, forgetting that it actually was an amazing gift presented to them from the environment. And so to take the analogy further, the the rational view is I will return it. So when the toddler is told, Come on, we have to go home now, let's return the thing you are playing with, that is actually much more accurate and causes less suffering than put your thing away, you can't have it anymore. And so Epictetus would say that when we receive a gift from the universe or nature, and that gift expires, we say to ourselves, I have returned it. I have returned it from where it came. Where it came from, you could say it's the source or mystery or nature. And so this way of thinking is not a way to gloss over loss. This is actually a way to think more accurately about loss, to increase our gratitude while we have things, and to not suffer unnecessarily when we lose something. So if a pet dies, did you lose your pet? No. Your pet was returned. Did your partner break up with you? No, they were returned from wherever they came. Did your car get stolen? No. It was returned. So you could say, hang on a second, hang on a second. My car was stolen by a thief who took my car or my money that was inside my car. It wasn't returned. And so Epictetus here would say, Why do you care about the means that it was returned? Something was given to you, and now it is given back. The universe has given you a car. A thief steals it. Who cares? It has been returned. It's none of your concern how it happens. You have still returned it. Things are now the same as they were before you had that car. You've used it in this arena called life, you've gotten use out of it, and you give it back. Fortune has presented the conditions in which you've given them back. Conditions that were outside of your control and therefore none of your concern. Now just to make it clear, if your car is stolen, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try and get it back or take the necessary steps to retrieve the car. Now this line of thinking is a way to help you remain centered, grounded, to help you see the facts of reality more accurately. So that whatever next steps you choose to take, you're taking them with a calm, centered mind. So when you enjoy something, appreciate it, enjoy it fully, but also be mindful that nothing is yours to own for eternity. In some sense we are all toddlers in a play center, enjoying life. When the time comes, will we say I'm happy to return these items from where they came? Or will we have a tantrum about it? Start with little things. When something breaks, when you lose something small, you didn't lose it, it was returned. And as time goes on, you can increase your skill and practice with greater and greater things.