The situation
Two years ago I put most of my savings, about £20,000, into an investment a colleague kept recommending. It has now lost nearly all its value. I feel sick whenever I think about it, angry with him and angrier with myself, and I keep checking the price as if staring at it might change something.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationThis is a real loss, and the sick feeling and the anger are what loss feels like, especially when you trusted someone and made the decision yourself. In Stoic terms, the money has gone, but the larger risk now is a second loss: letting it also take your peace of mind, a working relationship and your respect for yourself.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- How often you check the price, and whether you keep reliving the decision
- What you learn from how the decision was made
- How you treat your colleague, and how you speak to yourself
- Getting proper, independent advice before any further decisions about your money
Not yours
- The market and the price of the investment
- The decision you made two years ago
- Your colleague’s judgement and his intentions
- Whether any of the money comes back
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsSeneca, On Peace of Mind 8
… Reflect, then, how much less a grief it is never to have had any money than to have lost it: we shall thus understand that the less poverty has to lose, the less torment it has with which to afflict us: for you are mistaken if you suppose that the rich bear their losses with greater spirit than the poor: a wound causes the same amount of pain to the greatest and the smallest body. …
Epictetus, Discourses 4.3
Keep this thought in readiness when you lose anything external: what you acquire in place of it; and if it be worth more, never say, “I have had a loss”; neither if you have got a horse in place of an ass, or an ox in place of a sheep, nor a good action in place of a bit of money, nor in place of idle talk such tranquillity as befits a man, nor in place of lewd talk if you have acquired modesty. If you remember this, you will always maintain your character such as it ought to be. But if you do not, consider that the times of opportunity are perishing, and that whatever pains you take about yourself, you are going to waste them all and overturn them. …
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.41
Whatever of the things which are not within thy power thou shalt suppose to be good for thee or evil, it must of necessity be that, if such a bad thing befall thee or the loss of such a good thing, thou wilt blame the gods, and hate men too, those who are the cause of the misfortune or the loss, or those who are suspected of being likely to be the cause; and indeed we do much injustice, because we make a difference between these things [because we do not regard these things as indifferent]. But if we judge only those things which are in our power to be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God or standing in a hostile attitude to man.
What this means here
AI interpretationSeneca, On Peace of Mind 8
Seneca begins by taking money seriously. He calls property the most fertile source of human sorrows and admits that losing money hurts more than never having had it, for rich and poor alike, so the pain you feel is not weakness or vanity. His remedy is not to pretend otherwise but to be less exposed to Fortune: the less of your happiness you stake on what can be taken, the less it can wound you. That is a point about peace of mind rather than an investment strategy, and it applies to how much of yourself you put at risk as much as how much money.
Translation note: Fortune here is the Roman goddess of chance, standing for luck and circumstance. The remarks about slaves reflect the slave-owning society Seneca lived in; his point is how possessions tie us down.
Epictetus, Discourses 4.3
Epictetus asks a practical question whenever something external is lost: what have you gained in its place? Among his examples is a good action in place of a bit of money, and calm in place of idle talk. You cannot get the £20,000 back, but you can decide what the loss buys you: a clearer sense of how much risk you can live with, a habit of checking before you trust, perhaps more honesty with the people close to you. He goes on to name the things truly worth guarding, such as steadiness, freedom from fear and tranquillity, and asks what you would sell them for. Losing the money is bad enough; losing those as well would be the bigger loss.
Translation note: Freedom from the affects means not being ruled by the passions. Masurius and Cassius were Roman legal experts, standing for man-made rules as opposed to the laws of reason.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.41
Marcus notices how loss turns into blame. If you treat something outside your control as truly good, losing it will make you resent whoever seems to have caused it, and here that means your colleague and yourself. His way out is not to excuse anyone but to change what you count as good or bad: your own judgements and actions, not a price on a screen. Unless he misled you, your colleague most likely believed in the investment too, and you made a decision with what you knew at the time. Neither of you needs to become your enemy.
Translation note: Indifferent, in the bracketed words, is the Stoic term for things that are neither good nor bad in themselves, such as money.
Read together, the passages separate two losses. The first, the money, has already happened, and Seneca is honest that it hurts. The second is still up to you: whether the loss also costs you sleep, a working relationship and your respect for yourself. Epictetus asks what you can gain in exchange, and Marcus shows that blame only multiplies the damage when money is treated as the thing that decides how your life is going. You can grieve the money, learn from the decision and still keep what matters most.
One action for today
AI interpretationWrite it down
Today, delete the price app or turn off its alerts, and write one page in two columns: what this loss has taken (the money, the plans you had for it) and what you can still gain from it (one lesson about risk, one habit you will change, one honest conversation you need to have). Before you make any further decisions about your savings, speak to an independent, regulated financial adviser rather than acting alone or on a tip.
A line to carry
“Keep this thought in readiness when you lose anything external: what you acquire in place of it …”
— Epictetus, Discourses 4.3