Seneca, Moral Letters 20.3

Therefore, to omit the ancient definitions of wisdom and to include the whole manner of human life, I can be satisfied with the following: 

 

"What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things." 

 

You may be excused from adding the little proviso—that what you wish, should be right; since no man can always be satisfied with the same thing, unless it is right.

 

For this reason men do not know what they wish, except at the actual moment of wishing; no man ever decided once and for all to desire or to refuse. Judgment varies from day to day, and changes to the opposite, making many a man pass his life in a kind of game. 

 

Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 20

 

Stoicism is a philosophy where moral excellence is the ultimate human achievement, though it thankfully does not get itself caught up in priggish details and prudish regulations, precisely because it cherishes what is on the inside instead of being distracted by what is on the outside. In and of themselves, our circumstances are indifferent, and are only employed for benefit or for harm by the presence or absence of virtue and vice. 

 

This means that I am free to pursue most any sort of life that I wish, while my preference is subject to just a single principle of my own conscience: as long as it is in harmony with the increase of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, it can be chosen as something good. 

 

I can be a banker or a janitor, a laborer or even a lawyer, if I can also manage to do so with understanding and with love. How I dress, or what I eat, or where I live are entirely secondary to the mindset with which I go about dressing, or eating, or living. The measure of worth is in the content of character, not in the trappings of appearance. 

 

And so the conditions of my life could vary wildly, I might go about things very differently than my neighbor, and where I am now may be miles away from where I was a decade ago, but what must remain stable and unbroken is my power to distinguish right from wrong. The situations always change, while my commitment to the virtues draws its strength from being deeply rooted in the order of Nature. 

 

Such constancy is the only cure for the volatility of the passions, and it is built up by regular reflection and steady habit. The appetites will speak out as they do, and they are not to be blamed; the fault is in my reluctance to provide them with direction. If I am confident that I have judged soundly, I must then be unwavering in my responsibility. It slowly but surely becomes easier and more fulfilling with daily practice. 

 

A decision is still made at each moment, for life is a continuous unfolding, and yet as much may still remain to be done, a sense of purpose will inspire me to what I know that I must do. 

—Reflection written in 9/2012

IMAGE: Tobias Verhaecht, The Temptation of Christ (c. 1610)