If, however, you intend to be rid of this slavery; if freedom is genuinely pleasing in your eyes; and if you seek counsel for this one purpose—that you may have the good fortune to accomplish this purpose without perpetual annoyance—how can the whole company of Stoic thinkers fail to approve your course? Zeno, Chrysippus, and all their kind will give you advice that is temperate, honorable, and suitable.
But if you keep turning round and looking about, in order to see how much you may carry away with you, and how much money you may keep to equip yourself for the life of leisure, you will never find a way out. No man can swim ashore and take his baggage with him.
Some are chained down in body, treated as if they were no more than pieces of property, and any who impose such bondage are indeed committing a grave injustice.
And some are chained down in soul, condemned by their own judgments to be defined by property, and it is tragic to see them impose such a grave injustice upon themselves.
If I fall to the former, the blame falls squarely upon others; if I fall to the latter, the fault is entirely my own. All too often, I am so worried about fighting to be free in the flesh, that I neglect to work for my freedom in the spirit. Slavery takes on many different forms.
I constantly remind myself that there can be no social justice without just individuals, how the whole is only as good as the merit of the parts. Am I frustrated with the state of the world? Well, what virtues have I lived today, so that I might contribute to the solution? I cannot share a liberty I do not already possess, and this must begin with building up my own inner character, regardless of the outer circumstances.
With this goal of personal reformation in mind, the writings of the Stoics, as one aspect of the world’s wisdom traditions, can offer powerful aid. I can no longer count how often a moment of pause with a passage from Seneca, or Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius has put my mind and heart back in order. Reassess the priorities, and all the frustrations about what I believe I deserve are replaced with a peace in what I know I must give.
Yet none of these teachings will be of any use to me at all, if I still assume that success is measured by acquisition and consumption. As long as groveling for money, basking in fame, and wallowing in luxuries are my ambitions, whatever the great philosophers have to say will fall on deaf ears.
I increasingly hear of trendsetters, for example, attempting to adapt Stoic principles to the world of business, and I can only scratch my head. I have no doubt that a Stoic can become a much better owner or manager by growing in self-discipline, integrity, and fairness, but once he embraces such deeper values, making a profit will then cease to be what matters most to him. Instead, he will treat his employees and customers as persons to be respected, not as objects to be exploited.
The only decent business ethics teacher I ever had gave it to me straight: “If you strive to be a good man, you may also become a rich man, but if you strive to be a rich man, you will never become a good man.” Amen.
What is it I long for the most? What do I pray for? Even the godless pray, in their own way, because they hope that life will grant them what they desire. I do believe that Providence never fails to supply us with precisely what we need, and oftentimes does so by actually granting our wishes.
Beware, however, of the bitter irony, when what we want turns out to be a curse disguised as a blessing. Once the grasping man has won an ownership of everything around him, it may be too late for him to recognize that he has lost an ownership of himself.
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