Seneca, On Peace of Mind 4.7

As some remedies benefit us by their smell as well as by their taste and touch, so virtue even when concealed and at a distance sheds usefulness around. Whether she moves at her ease and enjoys her just rights, or can only appear abroad on sufferance and is forced to shorten sail to the tempest, whether it be unemployed, silent, and pent up in a narrow lodging, or openly displayed, in whatever guise she may appear, she always does good.

What? Do you think that the example of one who can rest nobly has no value? It is by far the best plan, therefore, to mingle leisure with business, whenever chance impediments or the state of public affairs forbid one's leading an active life: for one is never so cut off from all pursuits as to find no room left for honorable action.

I will sometimes assume that nothing I do will make any difference, that there is no way I can make the world better. Like Serenus, once again, I want to crawl into a hole. No one listens. No one cares. I am pissing into the wind.

Just the other day, I sat down with a fellow who was going through a rough patch in his marriage. He felt that his wife wasn’t paying enough attention to him, that she demanded too much from him, that there was no longer even a marriage bed. And he was sorely tempted to go off and have a sordid fling with a woman we both know.

She was quite easy on the eyes, and she had a certain charm, but she would be nothing but trouble for him. He knew it quite well, but he still wished to proceed. So I did my best, and I said what I usually do, whether it be to a friend, or a student, or even to someone I have just met.

“What will you gain from this? And what will you lose? I’m not talking about money, or a quick fix for your pecker, or your manly sense of feeling respected. I’m talking about your conscience.

“Will you be a better man or a worse man tomorrow? It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but it is my place to tell you something of what I’ve learned. I do know never to trade love for lust. It has destroyed me before.”

“Yeah, I get it. Thanks for being there for me. I’m going to walk away from all that.”

And you know what? The next morning his wife called me. “Where is he? Why didn’t he come home last night?”

I knew exactly where he was, and I knew exactly what he ended up doing. I felt useless, because I felt that my efforts had been wasted. He heard me, and he said that he understood, and yet he still did the exact opposite of what he said he would do, of what he should have done.

Why do I waste my breath? Everyone I know looks at me like a freak, the fellow who gives all that profound advice they never end up following. They listen, and they nod their heads in agreement, and then they still go the other way. They feel good about the discussion, and then they obey the little head instead of the big head.

But let me turn it around, and try to see it from the other side. Let me think of the many times, all the many times I can no longer count, when the simplest words or actions of others ultimately helped me to be better. It was not always immediate, and it was rarely something they ever saw. The effects often came quietly, slowly, and with subtlety.

Sometimes I thanked them after the fact, but usually I failed to do so. I became a better man so often because of the example of others, and I’m sure they had no clue how deeply they had touched my life.

It matters nothing at all for me to know that I have made a difference; the difference is already made by my struggle to live well.  How may it affect others? I will probably never know, and I probably don’t even need to know.

Maybe there is someone out there, right now, who somehow changed his life for the better because of something I said or did. Maybe there is someone out there, right now, who cherishes some silly and random kindness I managed to commit. Love always flows outward, and never stays in one place.

It is a rather weary platitude, but I think of ripples on the water. Any action leads to a reaction. The good I do will lead to other good. The evil I do will lead to other evil.

Do I want to make the world better? Let me make myself better. What little good there is within me will seep out, and it will work in ways I can never expect. Once I have managed to do something right, there is always another who will benefit from that right.

What am I doing? Is it work or is it play? Is it serious or is it casual? Is it about critical decisions in business or is it a matter of leisure? It makes no difference. Virtue always does what is good. It works in mysterious ways. It changes everything it touches.

Do circumstances hinder me? They may hinder how loud I can be. But they do not hinder virtue in any form. There is no barrier to love. Once I can manage to be kind, just, and compassionate, I have already changed the entire world. That tiny bit makes a difference.

Even in rest, even when I have no power over others, even when no one thinks I am worth anything at all, my thoughts, words, and actions will matter. It may not be in the dramatic way that I prefer, but it will be in the way that Nature intends.

Written in 7/2011