Seneca, On the Happy Life 44: Born for Others

“. . . I will so live as to remember that I was born for others, and I will thank Nature on this account: for in what fashion could she have done better for me? She has given me alone to all, and all to me alone.

“Whatever I may possess, I will neither hoard it greedily nor squander it recklessly. I will think that I have no possessions so real as those that I have given away to deserving people. I will not reckon benefits by their magnitude or number, or by anything except the value set upon them by the receiver. I never will consider a gift to be a large one if it is bestowed upon a worthy object.

“I will do nothing because of public opinion, but everything because of conscience. Whenever I do anything alone by myself I will believe that the eyes of the Roman people are upon me while I do it.

“In eating and drinking my object shall be to quench the desires of Nature, not to fill and empty my belly. . . .”

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 20 (tr Stewart)

The principles of ethics are much richer and deeper than any politics or economics, because they are concerned not merely with the circumstances of power and wealth, but with the very purpose of our human nature.

So much of what we see around us tries to insist that man is made to acquire, to possess, to consume. The Stoic, however, stands by the basic truth that man is defined not by what comes to him, but by what he does. He is made, therefore, not to receive for himself, but to give of himself.

This flies in the face of accepted custom, and one cannot take a money seeker, a power broker, or a fame follower and merely dress him up like a Stoic. These views are incompatible, because they consider man as ordered toward opposing ends. I have slowly discovered that I only really began to appreciate life once I started to think of myself as a creature made not to dominate, but to love.

The value of anything is to be measured not by its financial worth, or by the profit of wealth or influence it can give to me, but by its moral worth, how it can be used to improve the character of both others and myself. Consider a man to be a good investor if he assists others in their happiness, and consider him rich if he owns his own deeds.

Once I begin to measure my actions through the approval or disapproval of others, I have already strayed from the path. I am here to care for others, and to live with them openly, but I am not ruled by their esteem. I only need to follow my awareness of right and wrong, as informed by Nature, to live the good life.

Though people all around me may want to devour more and more, Nature is always asking me to take and enjoy what I need, but never to want any more than I may need. I can only begin to see temperance and self-control as a great benefit when I no longer see myself as a consumer of good, but as an agent of good. 

Written in 10/2016 

Images: Frederick James Shields, Man Repels the Appeal of Conscience, and Man Harkens to the Appeal of Conscience (c. 1910)