Daily Meditations · Tuesday, August 4, 2026
On taking your share
"Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take a moderate share. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you." — Epictetus, Enchiridion 15
Chapter fifteen of the Enchiridion is a lesson Epictetus gave his students on appetite, on the exact problem of wanting the dish that has already gone by. He is not describing death here, though he circles it elsewhere. He is describing the smaller, daily art of taking what is set in front of you and letting the rest continue past. The banquet does not owe you a second helping. It owes you nothing at all. Your work is only how you reach, and when you stop reaching.
This week the former British No. 1 Dan Evans played his last match. The 36-year-old bid farewell to the sport after losing in the first round of the Wimbledon men's doubles tournament with partner Henry Searle. No trophy, no farewell tour: a first-round exit, and then the decision to stop reaching. Most endings arrive that way, in the ordinary middle of a Tuesday. The question is whether you can lower your hand without bitterness when the plate moves on.
What are you still reaching after, long past the moment it passed you by?
Source: lastwordonsports.com →
