Most of the things that matter deeply to us and that bring us joy are not things that we own. We do not own our marriage, our children, our community, our friendships, our family, or our country. We do not own the air we breathe, the mountains we walk through, or the beaches we lay on. We do not own our religion, our congregation, our faith. We do not even own our health. We have influence on all these, we are a part of them, and our decisions shape what happens to them, but they do not really belong to us. Some of these were here before we were, and will be present after we die; others are merely entrusted to us for a while, before they move on from us, or we move on from them.
Despite this, we live in a society where the goal is to own more. We think about how to get more, how to leverage what we have to increase our holdings, how to guard what we have acquired. We are driven to endlessly accumulate. We focus on control, on extraction, on permanence, on staking a claim. While these impulses are human and normal, they are at odds with the fleeting, shared nature of the most meaningful parts of life. A different perspective that helps us value and grow what is most precious to us is to move away from the idea of ownership– which demands possession– and towards the idea of stewardship, which invites a different set of priorities and perspectives.
At its core, stewardship is about caring for something precious that has been entrusted to us—not something we own, but something we are responsible for during our time with it. In contrast to ownership– which is not about holding tightly to what is ours– it is about tending to what we will ultimately let go of and pass on. Stewardship emphasizes nurturing, protecting, and giving—an approach rooted in responsibility rather than possession.
Key to the idea of stewardship is the notion that after our time is done, after our term as steward has passed, someone else will assume responsibility to continue caring for what was entrusted to us. The role of steward is the role of a caretaker, and it is not a permanent role.
Imagine how different our country would look if all of us viewed ourselves as temporary stewards of the idea of America. Imagine if we all took to heart the idea that our role was to shepherd this fragile experiment for future generations, rather than thinking of ourselves as owners, able to do with it what we wanted. How would our decisions be different? Suppose we thought of America not as ours in the present, but as belonging to our children and grandchildren? Imagine how different our behavior would be. And imagine further that part of the legacy we passed down to future generations was this same idea– that when they too came of age, it was merely their turn to act as a steward for the next generation.
Suppose we viewed ourselves as stewards of our family and our family legacy, rather than inheritors or possessors of it. We say my family, or my children, but that might not be the right perspective. After all, we do not own our children, and they will grow beyond us. We do not own our family, it only exists as a result of our care and dedication. Our approach might be different if we considered ourselves caretakers of our children, as stewards of their childhood. Our role is a temporary one, and they will grow into their own person, not merely an extension of ourself. Our job is not to own our family, but to nurture it.
Ownership seduces us with the illusion of control. If we own something, we believe we can direct it, manage it, and secure it. While that might be true for some inanimate objects—our children grow in directions we didn’t plan, our relationships evolve, our bodies change. Holding tightly to these, possessing them, does not allow them to flourish. Stewardship, by contrast, invites humility about our limits. This is not a comment about the size of the impact we can make– stewards can make an enormous impact– but about the type of impact we can make. Ironically, when we stop grasping so tightly, we often behave more wisely, and are able to impact more greatly. Letting go is not abandonment, it's a more honest relationship with impermanence, and a helpful framework for growing the things that are more important to us.
Stewardship might be a more helpful framework than ownership for approaching our health. Instead of treating our body as something to sculpt, exploit, or ignore based on external pressures, stewardship invites us to care for it as something temporarily entrusted to us. We don’t own our bodies in the consumer sense; we inhabit them, and our job is to care for them while we can. This framework accepts that everything is finite. We age. We get injured. We live with chronic conditions. Instead of feeling betrayed or ashamed as the owner of a defective product, we might better focus on doing the best we can to care for what we’ve been given. This approach replaces frustration and disappointment with compassion and responsibility.
In spite of our material wealth– more people own more things than at any time in history– our collective disillusionment is also more pronounced. Maybe the root of our disillusionment is that so many of the institutions and organizations we have created have stopped thinking and acting as stewards. Leaders cling to power and try to possess institutions, instead of preparing successors. The question never seems to be how do I caretake this institution for whoever comes next, but instead how do I use this institution to maximize the benefit to me right now.
We all long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. But being a part of something larger than any individual is difficult to reconcile with the idea of ownership and possession. By definition, being a part of something bigger means not owning it. As the idea of individual ownership has ascended, there has been a commensurate decline in our sense of shared responsibility and collective belonging. We’ve been taught to stake claims rather than build connections, to accumulate rather than contribute or caretake. The more we focus on what is mine, the harder it becomes to feel part of something ours. The idea of holding onto something for oneself is fundamentally at odds with the idea of temporarily caretaking before passing it on.
The disregard for stewardship is not something we have to accept, and is not something we have to participate in. We can adopt the idea of stewardship as a moral and operational framework without anyone’s permission. When we participate in our communities and civic life, we can frame our questions and structure our engagement with this in mind. We can approach the decisions we make in our life and with regards to our relationships from this perspective. We can all act as stewards.
Cheers,
Doc
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