Seneca, Moral Letters 20.7

It is the mark, however, of a noble spirit not to precipitate oneself into such things on the ground that they are better, but to practice for them on the ground that they are thus easy to endure. And they are easy to endure, Lucilius; when, however, you come to them after long rehearsal, they are even pleasant; for they contain a sense of freedom from care—and without this nothing is pleasant.

 

I hold it essential, therefore, to do as I have told you in a letter that great men have often done: to reserve a few days in which we may prepare ourselves for real poverty by means of fancied poverty. 

 

There is all the more reason for doing this, because we have been steeped in luxury and regard all duties as hard and onerous. Rather let the soul be roused from its sleep and be prodded, and let it be reminded that nature has prescribed very little for us. 

 

No man is born rich. Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning, and yet kingdoms are all too small for us! Farewell.

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 20

 

Just as I must be wary of falling in love with wealth, I must also resist the temptation to think of poverty as being somehow noble in itself. No happiness can come from playing the melancholic hero, wallowing in his suffering, who finds a morbid satisfaction in being denied what he desires. It is not good to be rich, nor is it good to be poor—it is simply good to be good. 

 

To place fortune at arm’s length is rather a means for making myself more resilient to her infamous slings and arrows. The less I tend to her demands, the more I can tend to my own needs, and as my concern with her caprice decreases, so my commitment to my character increases. 

 

I should love the world and all that is in it, with all of my heart, but let me not permit that love to be twisted into a slavery of lust. My love is defined by what I choose to give, not by what I may receive. 

 

Seneca again recommends the deliberate practice of seeking out occasions to be content with less. Instead of being about putting on a show for others, it serves as a personal commitment to a strengthening of moral habits. Through such preparation, it gradually becomes possible to learn to bear the things that once seemed so unbearable, and then, with even further refinement, to find peace and joy in a liberation from petty attachments and vain diversions. 

 

Even when experienced in only the slightest degree, there is nothing quite like the fulfillment of knowing that I have managed to be my own man, no longer under the thumb of any other or chained to any mercurial conditions. 

 

This serves to counter the destructive notion that what I am obligated to do for others is a tedious chore for me, and that receiving ever-greater profits from the world is somehow my God-given right. My human nature is perfected in the doing, not in the getting, and a wholesome regimen of self-reliance can help me appreciate that fact. 

 

If I strip away all the accessories and cosmetics, there remains a beautiful creature hidden beneath, one blessed with the power to know and to love, requiring little more than the humblest of opportunities to exercise those pure gifts. What more could ever be required? The property adds nothing, the fame adds nothing, the comforts add nothing. I remind myself that I need so very little, even as I foolishly want so very much. 

 

Such words can only have any effect where there is the fortitude to follow through; the only obstacle to doing so is little old me. 

—Reflection written in 9/2012