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Money and possessions

Money is neither good nor evil in Stoic terms; it is material, and what matters is whether you hold it or it holds you. The test is not what you own but what would remain if it went. These exercises put that question in ordinary situations.

44 exercises and cases on money and possessions, from the Stoic practice of sorting what is yours from what is not.

Cases in this topic

Cleanthes and the wellsMoney and possessionsSeneca and the charge of wealthMoney and possessionsCrates and the given-away fortuneMoney and possessionsDemetrius and the emperor's giftMoney and possessions

Cuts in this topic

Take the situation apart. Each piece goes in one box; there is no third option.

The situation
Your investments are deep in the red.
Yours
  • Whether you check the price three times today.Looking changes nothing about the number and a great deal about your head. It is the act that feeds the unrest, and the cheapest one to stop.
  • Whether you follow your plan or your fear.The plan was written by you on a calm day, with precisely a day like today in mind. Which of the two you obey is the only real decision on the table.
  • Whether you adjust your spending where that is needed.Concrete, dull and entirely within reach. Acting in the part that is yours is also the best remedy for the helplessness in the part that is not.
Not yours
  • That the market has fallen.Millions of decisions by strangers, added up into a figure. There is no version of this week in which your opinion affects it.
  • When it recovers, if it recovers.Nobody knows this, including the people who sound certain about it on television. Uncertainty about the future is the normal condition, not a malfunction.
  • That it feels as though something has been taken from you.That feeling comes by itself and is not an arithmetic error. The Stoics would only add that you never held it the way you thought: property is a loan, and the market simply reminds you of that more sharply.
The reasoning. Money in Stoic terms is material: not good, not bad, and not yours in the sense that matters. The cut makes that concrete. Two of the three pieces in your column are acts available this afternoon, and the third is a choice between two voices in your head. Everything that actually preoccupies you, the number and the recovery, sits on the left, where there is no dial at all.
The situation
A friend earns twice as much for work you rate less highly.
Yours
  • Whether you make his income the measure of your own craft.The moment you do, you let the market decide what good work is. That is a judgment you hand over voluntarily.
  • Whether you find out what you are actually worth in your field.Feeling underpaid is a feeling; knowing the going rate is a fact. Looking that fact up is an afternoon's work and entirely yours.
  • Whether you ask for what you are worth instead of grumbling about it.Grumbling takes years and changes nothing. One conversation or one adjusted rate takes an afternoon. People stumble here because the second is frightening and the first is familiar.
Not yours
  • What the market pays for his work.Prices arise from thousands of decisions by strangers and follow no moral ranking. Quality and reward often move together and are not the same thing.
  • That you find it unfair.That judgment presents itself without being invited, and it is not foolish. The Stoics would only ask what you intend to do with it now that it is here.
  • Whether he earns less once you have decided it is undeserved.His pay does not move because of your verdict. All your verdict achieves, if you leave it standing, is that you take less pleasure in work you do well.
The reasoning. Putting money next to somebody else's does something money alone does not: it turns an amount into a figure for your worth. The cut separates those again. His rate, the market and the first sting sit on the left. Finding out what your craft is worth, asking for it, and refusing to make his payslip the measure sit on the right, and all three are things available this month.
The situation
An unexpected sum of money comes your way.
Yours
  • Whether you wait a month before deciding anything large.Money coming in asks to be moved, and that is exactly the wrong moment to decide. Waiting is an act and is entirely yours.
  • Whether you adjust your life to it or set it beside your life.Here is the distinction that decides everything. Spending that raises your fixed costs changes your life permanently; a one-off sum does not, unless you let it.
  • Whether you give some of it away.No moral obligation, but it is a test. What you can give away easily, you own; what you cannot spare, owns you.
Not yours
  • That it falls to you.Inheritance, bonus, windfall. It did not arrive because you deserved it in the moral sense and it may just as well fail to arrive next time.
  • What others think of what you do with it.Somebody always turns up with an opinion and occasionally with a request. Their verdict is beyond your reach; what you tell them is not.
  • Whether the sum holds its value.Markets, interest, inflation. You can spread and you can guarantee nothing, and anyone who believes otherwise runs the largest risk.
The reasoning. A windfall looks like luck and works like a test. The Stoics had no objection to it: money is material, neither good nor bad. What the cut makes visible is that almost everything that matters sits on the right, and that all of it consists of decisions you could equally take a month from now. Only the hurry belongs to nobody.
The situation
A friend asks to borrow money and you hesitate.
Yours
  • The decision, the amount and the terms.
Not yours
  • Whether he repays and how he handles the money.
  • The reason he needs it.
Read the full sorting
The situation
The energy bill comes in far higher than expected.
Yours
  • Your usage, your contract and your buffer.
  • The reproach that you should have seen this coming.
Not yours
  • The price per kilowatt hour.
Read the full sorting
The situation
Your car unexpectedly needs a costly repair.
Yours
  • Repairing or replacing, and the buffer.Comparing the quote, making the trade off, and absorbing the blow with what you had set aside, or drawing the lesson to build that up after all: that is all yours, and it can be done this week.
Not yours
  • That the car broke down and what the repair costs.Parts wear out and bills arrive unannounced; machines do not ask permission. The fright wants this to be unfair, but wear knows no justice, only mileage.
  • Whether it breaks down again.The mechanic can fix it and still nobody promises you a year without trouble. That uncertainty belongs to everything that drives and wears. With the repair you buy a working car, not a guarantee on the future.
The reasoning. The bill asks only one question: what is there to choose now? Everything else is commentary.
The situation
A friend who still owes you money asks for another loan.
Yours
  • Your yes or no, the amount and the form.Lend only what you could give, and choose deliberately: yes with open hands, or no with an open face. Both are friendship; only the halfhearted middle is not.
  • What you make of the friendship if he cannot repay.That moment does not have to be a break; it becomes one if the loan quietly turned into a measuring stick. Whoever decides in advance that the amount may not cost the friendship will have that decision ready when it counts.
Not yours
  • His situation, and whether he repays.How he got into it and whether the money returns stays his, even with the best agreements on paper. Whoever wants to guard that becomes a creditor inside his own friendship.
The reasoning. The loan changes the money; do not let it change the friendship. That second part is in your hands.
The situation
A family member asks whether you will guarantee a loan.
Yours
  • Your yes or no.A real decision, not a courtesy. Guaranteeing means being able to lose the amount without having influence over it; exactly the combination this exercise teaches you to recognise. Say yes only if you can carry the loss and the relationship can survive it.
Not yours
  • His financial situation, and what he does with the money.How he got there and how it ends stays outside your sight and outside your grip; guaranteeing gives no steering wheel, only risk.
  • How the family talks about it if you say no.A no to a guarantee sometimes becomes, around birthday tables, a no to the family. That story is written by others, with their own pen. Whoever says yes out of fear of that story pays later in money what he refused to pay now in discomfort.
The reasoning. The signature is small and the box behind it is large; sign only what you can carry without looking back.
The situation
You unexpectedly get a sizeable refund from the tax office.
Yours
  • What you do with it.Precisely with windfalls money disappears fastest, because it does not feel earned. The old advice still works: let it sit for thirty days without a plan. What you still want after a month, you really wanted; the rest was the excitement of the moment.
Not yours
  • That the amount came in.Windfalls cannot be planned or repeated; this was the world rolling your way for a moment, not an achievement and not a promise.
  • That everybody suddenly has an opinion about it.As soon as a windfall becomes known, the advisers report for duty by themselves: invest, renovate, “now or never”. Those choirs sing about their own wishes, not about your money. You owe nobody an explanation for the thirty days of silence.
The reasoning. The money arrived without a plan; do not hand it one immediately. Thirty days of silence separate the wish from the excitement.

Propositions in this topic

True or false? The answer is given; the reasoning behind it comes with the exercise.

Situations in this topic

Each situation below is already sorted: yours, not yours, or both. That sorting is the exercise.

Practice this yourself

Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions