Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired

by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength

and insight here in everyday life.

And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy well-known

and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits

that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their

actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

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How to own things.

Epic Teed has kept an expensive iron lamp in the front hallway of his home. He was up in

his bedroom when he heard some noise downstairs and when he went down, the lamp was gone.

I reasoned that the thief who took it must have had an impulse he couldn't resist. Epic

Teed is recalled, so I said to myself, you'll go and get a cheaper and less attractive lamp

made of clay tomorrow. A man only loses what he has. Is the lesson here that we should just

let thieves come into our homes and take our stuff or that we should only possess cheap

stuff? Not really. The stokes would say that we should enjoy what we own, but that our

happiness cannot be tied to what we own. Except prosperity with appreciation and moderation,

Hanako would write, but persuade yourself that you can live happily without it as well.

The comedian and car collector Jerry Seinfeld was asked if he thought about what would happen

...