The situation
At a friend’s birthday dinner, one of the group did an impression of my accent and made a joke about my job, and the whole table laughed. I laughed along, but I’ve replayed it for three days and keep drafting the message I want to send him.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationIt hurts to be the joke at a table of friends, and laughing along while feeling small is a miserable combination. The Stoic question is not whether the joke was fair, but whether you will keep handing this person the power to unsettle you, three days after he has probably forgotten it.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- Whether you keep replaying the evening
- Whether you send that message, and in what tone
- Telling him calmly, in person, that the accent jokes aren’t welcome
- Your own conduct, so that nothing you do deserves contempt
Not yours
- What he finds funny
- Why the rest of the table laughed
- His opinion of your accent or your job
- Whether he ever apologises
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsSeneca, On the Firmness of the Wise Person 17
… What of our taking offence if anyone imitates our talk, our walk, or apes any defect of our person or our pronunciation? as if they would become more notorious by another’s imitation than by our doing them ourselves. Some are unwilling to hear about their age and grey hairs, and all the rest of what men pray to arrive at. The reproach of poverty agonizes some men, and whoever conceals it makes it a reproach to himself; and therefore if you of your own accord are the first to acknowledge it, you cut the ground from under the feet of those who would sneer and politely insult you; no one is laughed at who begins by laughing at himself. …
Epictetus, Enchiridion 28
If any person was intending to put your body in the power of any man whom you fell in with on the way, you would be vexed: but that you put your understanding in the power of any man whom you meet, so that if he should revile you, it is disturbed and troubled, are you not ashamed at this?
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed he only assumed it. For the interior parts ought to be such, and a man ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor complaining. …
What this means here
AI interpretationSeneca, On the Firmness of the Wise Person 17
Seneca could almost have been at your dinner. He lists the things people are mocked for, including the way they speak, and asks why we take such offence when someone imitates what everyone can already hear. He notes that people who are first to joke about themselves leave mockers with nothing to say, and near the end comes his sharpest point: an insult succeeds through the sensitivity and anger of the person on the receiving end. Your accent is no defect, but the principle holds: the less the joke visibly lands, the less there is in it for the person who made it.
Translation note: Apes means imitates or mimics.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 28
Epictetus offers a comparison that is hard to shake off. You would be outraged if someone handed control of your body to a stranger, yet when a passing remark disturbs you for days, you have handed over your mind just as completely. That is not a failing on your part; it is simply worth noticing that three days of replaying the joke means three days of letting him set your mood.
Translation note: Revile means to insult or abuse, and your understanding here means your mind and judgement.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
Marcus divides the situation in two. Whether someone despises him is that person’s business; his own business is to make sure he never acts or speaks in a way that genuinely deserves contempt. That is a useful test for the message you keep drafting: would you be proud of it in a week? He also leaves room to point out someone’s mistake, gently and honestly, without reproach and without making a show of how much you have put up with.
Translation note: Let him look to that himself means that is his concern, not mine.
Between them, the passages take the sting out in three ways. Seneca shows that mockery depends on your reaction for its success. Epictetus shows what the replaying is costing you. Marcus gives you a standard for your own response: nothing you would be ashamed of later. None of this means you have to accept being the butt of the joke. If the accent jokes are a pattern, telling him so plainly and calmly is entirely in keeping with these passages. What they advise against is the angry message sent to win back face.
One action for today
AI interpretationSort what's yours from what isn't · the dichotomy of control
Delete the draft message. If the jokes about your accent have happened before, decide to tell him face to face, the next time you see him on his own, in one calm sentence: you didn’t find it funny and would rather he stopped. Then, each time the dinner replays in your head, ask yourself whose business his opinion is, and turn your attention back to your own.
A line to carry
“Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13