溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Can We Give Thanks It Was, Rather Than Grieve It Is Gone?
Instead of grieving what is gone as lost, can we give thanks that it ever was?
By gratitude for the good things that have been (we heal misfortune).
Epicurus's "give thanks that it was" opened a distinctive stance toward loss and time. The Epicureans held that recalling past pleasure can heal present pain, making good memory an asset of life. The Stoics, slightly differently, taught us not to cling to the past but to focus only on what we can control now — since even holding a past good can shake the mind's peace. Buddhism, in another shade, urged setting down attachment to the past itself. Is a past good an asset to recall with thanks, or an attachment to release? The question still divides making memory a comfort from dwelling wholly in the present.
In an age where it is easy to ache by dwelling on what is lost, Epicurus's question — to give thanks that what is gone once was — turns the weight of loss into gratitude.
Epicurus leaves an unexpected prescription for bearing misfortune: do not grieve what is gone as lost, but give thanks that it was.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Epicurus leaves an unexpected prescription for bearing misfortune: do not grieve what is gone as lost, but give thanks that it was. Though the one who shared your days has left, there was that time with them; though good days have passed, there were such days — a past good does not vanish but remains as a certain fact that already happened. I feel this reversal is the warmest form of what we leave. What we count as lost is, in truth, what we once had. Can I change the grief of losing into gratitude that it was? I call the ones I have let go by that gratitude too.
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