We know that one evening a thief entered Epictetus’s home and stole an iron lamp that he kept burning in a shrine in his front hallway. While he felt a flash of disappointment and anger, he knew that a Stoic was not to trust these strong emotions. Pausing, checking with himself, he found a different way through the experience of being robbed. “Tomorrow, my friend,” he said to himself, “you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has.”
