Seneca, On Peace of Mind 10.2

In every station of life you will find amusements, relaxations, and enjoyments; that is, provided you be willing to make light of evils rather than to hate them.

Knowing to what sorrows we were born, there is nothing for which Nature more deserves our thanks than for having invented habit as an alleviation of misfortune, which soon accustoms us to the severest evils. No one could hold out against misfortune if it permanently exercised the same force as at its first onset.

I will regularly hear people tell me how certain things in this world are boring, or offensive, or frustrating. In response to an unpleasant state of affairs, the solution will often be to hammer away at the circumstances until they are more gratifying, or, if all possible convenience has been extracted from them, to discard things entirely and replace them with new diversions.

This only seems reasonable as long as we are under the illusion that the world will bend to our wills. As soon as it becomes clear, as it must inevitably, that this is hardly the case, all that remains is our own dissatisfaction. We grow accustomed to having our happiness given to us by Fortune, and so we are then quite helpless in providing it for ourselves from Nature.

I will look quite the fool when I insist that nothing is boring but our own disinterest, that nothing is offensive but our own irritability, and that nothing is frustrating but our own resentment; if I allow that to annoy me, then I am just failing to follow my own advice. When I discover value in whatever has come my way, I can be at peace, but if I impose my demands and conditions upon events, I will forever be restless.

Such a shift of attitude, from working with Nature instead of against Nature, does not come easily, and it does not come quickly. It will be the deliberate strengthening of habit that brings order to impressions that are at first so overwhelming, and this may take some time. Old inclinations and routines must be broken down, and new ones built up in their place.

Once again, it will be up to me whether I think of the effort as worthy or wasted, if I take joy in the progress or find fault with the obstacles. What makes good habits so uplifting, and bad habits such a heavy burden, is the force of repetition, that the many small actions work together with an ever-increasing momentum. Have I taken too many steps in the wrong direction? I can always start by taking just one step back in the right direction, and the improvement has already begun.

How many times have I thought a task impossible, only later to laugh at my own doubts? Nature gave me this power, by granting me my own reason and choice, and making me able to give firm direction to my own purpose.

I may once have said it was unbearable, but I needed only a bit of fortitude and practice, and now I can actually navigate my way through the hardship, tame the trouble, and harness the aggravation. The world doesn’t change for me, but I change myself. It isn’t magic, but the forging of my own character. 

Written in 10/2011