The situation
I was made redundant after eight years at the same company. I feel humiliated, I keep replaying the meeting in my head, and I don’t know who I am without the job.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationYou have lost a role, an income and a daily routine, and that is a real loss worth taking seriously. What you have not lost is your judgement, your character or your ability to act well from here. Much of the sting of humiliation comes from the story that being let go makes you smaller, and that story is something you can examine rather than simply accept.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- How you interpret what happened, and the story you tell yourself about it
- How you treat former colleagues and the people at home this week
- The effort you put into the next application, conversation or skill
- Keeping a daily routine and your self-respect intact
Not yours
- The company’s decision and the reasons behind it
- The state of the job market
- What former colleagues think or say about it
- How quickly the next offer arrives
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.49
… And does a thing seem to thee to be a deviation from man’s nature, when it is not contrary to the will of man’s nature? Well, thou knowest the will of nature. Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man’s nature obtains all that is its own? Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 24
Let not these thoughts afflict you, I shall live unhonoured and be nobody nowhere. For if want of honour (ἀτιμία) is an evil, you cannot be in evil through the means (fault) of another any more than you can be involved in anything base. Is it then your business to obtain the rank of a magistrate, or to be received at a banquet? By no means. How then can this be want of honor (dishonor)? And how will you be nobody nowhere, when you ought to be somebody in those things only which are in your power, in which indeed it is permitted to you to be a man of the greatest worth? But your friends will be without assistance! What do you mean by being without assistance? …
Seneca, To Helvia, on Consolation 5
… I never have trusted in Fortune, even when she seemed most peaceful. I have accepted all the gifts of wealth, high office, and influence, which she has so bountifully bestowed upon me, in such a manner that she can take them back again without disturbing me: I have kept a great distance between them and myself: and therefore she has taken them, not painfully torn them away from me. …
What this means here
AI interpretationMarcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.49
Marcus is addressing himself about a blow he does not name, and the question he asks fits redundancy closely. Losing the job can take away income and status, but it cannot stop you from being fair, honest, sensible and generous, which are the qualities he counts as a person’s real possessions. He also notices that the same event could have happened to anyone; what differs is how it is borne. That turns the question from what this says about you into what you will do with it.
Translation note: Magnanimous means great-hearted; modesty here means self-respect rather than shyness, and free from pain means undisturbed in mind.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 24
This is the fear behind much of the pain of redundancy: without the title, I am nobody. Epictetus replies that you can be somebody in exactly the things that are in your power, such as your fidelity, your self-respect and your usefulness to the people around you, and nobody can make you redundant from those. It also prompts a useful question for this week: what do your family and community actually need from you? Rarely is it the job title.
Translation note: Want of honour means loss of status or standing; modest here means self-respecting and unassuming rather than shy.
Seneca, To Helvia, on Consolation 5
This passage comes from a letter of consolation Seneca sent to his mother from exile, after he had lost his place in Roman public life. He describes holding wealth, office and influence loosely, as gifts on loan from Fortune. The point is not to care less about your career, but to hold it in a way that lets it be taken back without taking you with it. If the job had become most of how you saw yourself, that is common after eight years, and the passage suggests where to rest your weight as you rebuild.
Translation note: She, in this passage, is Fortune, pictured as a goddess who hands out luck and takes it back.
Taken together, the passages make a simple distinction: the job was something you held, not something you were. Losing it is a genuine setback among the things not in your power, such as income, standing and routine, and it is reasonable to feel that. But the humiliation is a judgement layered on top, and judgements can be re-examined. The person who did good work for eight years is still here, with every quality that made that work good.
One action for today
AI interpretationSort what's yours from what isn't · the dichotomy of control
Tonight, take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side, list what was taken from you; on the other, list what is still yours: skills, relationships, character and today’s choices. Pick one item from the second column and act on it tomorrow morning.
A line to carry
“Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.49