(독서) Daily Stoic-12월4일 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, 3.24.3

(“막을 수 있거나, 빼앗기거나, 강요될 수 있는 것은 사람 자신의 것이 아닙니다. 하지만 막을 수 없는 것만이 진정으로 자신의 것입니다.” - 에픽테토스, 《담화록》 3.24.3 )

The conservationist Daniel O'Brien has said that he doesn't "own" his several-thousand-acre buffalo ranch in South Dakota, he just lives there while the bank lets him make mortgage payments on it. It's a joke about the economic realities of ranching, but it also hints at the idea that land doesn't belong to one individual, that it will far outlast us and our descendants. Marcus Aurelius used to say that we don't own anything and that even our lives are held in trust.

We may claw and fight and work to own things, but those things can be taken away in a second. The same goes for other things we like to think are "ours" but are equally precarious: our status, our physical health or strength, our relationships. How ...