Seneca, Moral Letters 8.4

When I commune in such terms with myself and with future generations, do you not think that I am doing more good than when I appear as counsel in court, or stamp my seal upon a will, or lend my assistance in the senate, by word or action, to a candidate? 

 

Believe me, those who seem to be busied with nothing are busied with the greater tasks; they are dealing at the same time with things mortal and things immortal.

 

I regularly hear all sorts of advice about becoming successful, most of it involving clever tricks on how to accumulate money, or win fame, or influence other people to do what I want. What I do not hear regularly, however, is an account of why they constitute success, the reasons for calling such things good. 

 

When I found myself becoming a teacher, I quickly had to learn a hard lesson, that unless I was going to use this as a stepping-stone to becoming a self-important bureaucrat, I would have to be content with none of the usual signs of success. There would be little money in it if I was dedicated, no fame in it if I was honest, and it would be a rare day when someone followed my suggestions. 

 

Over the years, I can think of only a small handful of students who became better from anything I offered them, and I regularly struggled against feeling a resentment toward those who turned education into a game of power and popularity. Through all of it, I planted a seed here or there, and I managed to become just a bit more patient and compassionate. 

 

That’s hardly the sort of stuff I can use to promote myself on a professional résumé, but maybe that’s the whole point, that the most valuable achievements in life cannot be measured by wealth, honors, or bragging rights. As soon as I even want to show off, I’m already confused about what I should be doing, and where I need to be going. 

 

I imagine that some of Seneca’s old colleagues back in Rome would snicker at what a failure he had become, running away to the country and wasting his time on reflection and writing. The practice of business, and law, and politics is, after all, what such people think to be important. 

 

And yet merely by asking himself what was good and bad in life, Seneca was doing something they had never done, and he was busying himself with the work of being human, not just the chore of appearing grand. 

 

Besides the fact that he held a number of Roman procuratorships, I do not know what became of Lucilius, or whether his correspondence with Seneca ultimately helped him to become a better and a happier man. I have a hunch that it did, however, because I know how much these letters, which were never even addressed to me, have offered me a sense of meaning and purpose, all those centuries later. 

 

When a fellow can do that for his friend, or a complete stranger, then his life has surely been a brilliant success. 

Written in 4/2012