Seneca, On Peace of Mind 11.1

These remarks of mine apply only to imperfect, commonplace, and unsound natures, not to the wise man, who needs not to walk with timid and cautious gait: for he has such confidence in himself that he does not hesitate to go directly in the teeth of Fortune, and never will give way to her.

Nor indeed has he any reason for fearing her, for he counts not only chattels, property, and high office, but even his body, his eyes, his hands, and everything whose use makes life dearer to us, no, even his very self, to be things whose possession is uncertain; he lives as though he had borrowed them, and is ready to return them cheerfully whenever they are claimed.

Confidence? By all means. Weakness? Quite unacceptable.

Most people would gladly insist on such principles, especially those folks caught up in the world of earning money, of winning status, and of acquiring influence. Think of all those inspirational phrases you will hear about the attitude of the winner, about never being second best, or about taking what you know you deserve.

And the meaning in all of that depends on our standards of winning and losing. It is admirable to be confident, but in what should I have confidence? It is shameful to be weak, but what actually makes me weak?

There is a vast difference between two models of success, between being more and getting more. What we mean by confidence or weakness hinges upon which model we choose.

The Stoic attitude is quite natural, in that it derives from who we essentially are as human beings, but it is also quite radical, in that it asks us to go against the grain of all the artificial habits we have acquired.

Is it reasonable to expect that the world will give us external rewards in proportion to what we do, that we will be fulfilled by the acquisition of things as a consequence of our efforts?

I have been told that for all of my life, and I do not wish to be crude, but I call bullshit. For each hard-working man who gets rich, another one remains poor. For each lazy man who rots in the gutter, another one hits the jackpot. In this sense, life is hardly fair at all.

Now consider it from a different perspective. Why should those circumstances, which are ultimately quite outside of our control, define who we are? There is another option, and it is completely within our control. Let our own thoughts and deeds define who we are, entirely for their own sake. In this sense, life is totally fair.

Hence the wise man is confident when he relies on his own actions, and he is weak when he relies on the actions of others. In contrast, the fool thinks he is confident when he worries about what he receives, and he thinks he is weak when he worries about what he might give.

To be confident in myself is not to make myself the center of the Universe; it is simply to make me a center for myself. I take what I have been offered, and I nurture it, and I make it grow. I can still be humble, since I know that my own worth fits within the worth of the whole.

When I fall into weakness, it has nothing to do with being worse than anyone else; it has everything to do with being worse than what I alone am able to be. My weakness comes from my requirement to define myself by everything except myself.

If I can remember that, and not just conceive it but actually live it, Fortune has no control over my happiness. I am the one who decides whether I will take it or leave it. I can be confident in that.

Why should Fortune hurt me, when everything she lends me was never mine to begin with? If I am truly myself, then I will care little for the rest. To lose property, or gratification, or reputation only causes such deep pain when I claim them as my own, and they cease to be such a burden when I no longer think of them as something to which I am entitled.

Was Dives happier than Lazarus? The only way to answer that question is to further ask who the better man was, the one who relied upon his own virtues or the one who relied on his situation. Who was really strong or weak? Who was really living on table scraps? 

Written in 11/2011

IMAGE: Luca Giordano, Dives and Lazarus (c. 1680)