It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun.
This idea, however, clear though it is, must be strengthened and implanted more deeply by daily reflection; it is more important for you to keep the resolutions you have already made than to go on and make noble ones. You must persevere, must develop new strength by continuous study, until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose.
A part of me wants to rush through the opening sentences of this letter, as when my parents were scolding me, and I was certain that I had already learned the lesson.
“Yes, I need to work on understanding my life to live it well, and yes, to do that I must exercise my mind rigorously. I get that part!”
Yet I may not be getting it as completely as I should, and so the reiteration is not nagging at all, but aimed at strengthening my habits. If I am already committed, why am I resentful of hearing it again? If am doing such a good job at it, why am still falling short? There will be no progress toward the later steps if I haven’t mastered the earlier steps.
And as obvious as the advice sounds, I don’t think most of us take it as seriously as we should. It makes perfect sense in theory, that I can’t pursue the good without knowing the good, while in practice I am inclined to continue being led about by my passions. There is the proof that the saying and the doing are not the same thing.
Justice gets swept aside by anger, and temperance gets smothered by lust, all because wisdom isn’t taking a stand with courage. I can still do better.
I need not feel disheartened, however, on account of this being a work in progress. I may think that the noblest of tasks are still beyond my reach, and then I should be happy to work on the everyday decencies, as they too are crucial steps forward. An act of complete self-sacrifice, for example, is quite impossible if I have not first trained myself in little acts of kindness and self-control.
We might like to skip over it, but the fact is that we become better at something by repeating it over and over, and just as the constitution of my body improves by a daily routine, so too will the constitution of my mind. With a bit of practice, I begin to see that the doing itself, however humble, starts to become fulfilling and satisfying.
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