One evening Epictetus woke up to hear someone in his house. Walking towards the noise, he found a criminal had stolen the iron lamp he kept burning in a shrine in his front hallway. As always, Epictetus handled the situation with calmness and humor. “Tomorrow,” he said to himself, “you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has.”

But what if Epictetus had been awake when the man walked in? What if he had caught the thief red handed? Would he have beaten the criminal up? Would he have fought for his prized lamp? Pressed charges after? Demanded restitution?

Actually, if we know anything about Epictetus, we can say confidently the situation would have gone almost exactly as it did. To him, the theft was a reminder from fate that we don’t truly possess anything. It was also a reminder, we can guess, that human beings–out of desperation or greed–do unvirtuous things. That is something we don’t control, but we do control how we respond. We can imagine that Epictetus, had he caught the thief and talked to the man, he might have responded as the bishop so beautifully did in Les Mis, telling John Valjean to take his stolen silver “to become an honest man.”

People will betray us in life. They will take from us. We can be hurt and broken and angry about this, or we can use it as Epictetus did–as a reminder of the transient nature of possession. We can use it as an opportunity as John Valjean did, to be merciful, to let them think better of it, to forgive, as Marcus tried to do when he was betrayed by Avidius Cassius. We can get better…and we can try to make them better too.