Seneca, Moral Letters 39.3

What enemy was ever so insolent to any opponent as are their pleasures to certain men? The only excuse that we can allow for the incontinence and mad lust of these men is the fact that they suffer the evils which they have inflicted upon others. 

And they are rightly harassed by this madness, because desire must have unbounded space for its excursions, if it transgresses nature's mean. For this has its bounds, but waywardness and the acts that spring from willful lust are without boundaries. 
 
Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous? It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them when once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable. 
 
And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills—and that is the worst ill of all! 
 
Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 39 
 
I may think that my suffering is unfair, but I am sorely mistaken. Perhaps it was given to me as a reminder of my failings, and so I might overcome it by finally improving myself. Nature never acts without just cause, such that a pain is a sign that something is amiss, and an emotional pain, in my experience the absolute worst sort, is telling me to modify my thinking about who I am and why I am here. 
 
Does something feel wrong? Then it is time to do right. 
 
James Stockdale once described it as “the reliability of the retribution of the guilty conscience”, which is a contemporary way of saying that we get exactly what we pay for, that a man always brings his worst punishments upon himself. 
 
Do I feel resentful about a scoundrel running away with something I consider to be rightfully mine? Am I jealous of his many pleasures? I should reconsider my opinion, because the very fact that he is so grasping is a sign of his urgent need, and the extent of his bitterness points directly to his deepest misery. Why would I ever wish to be such a wretched man? Instead of condemning him, I am called to pity him, and to offer him my hand. 
 
An addiction to pleasure, or to domination, or to self-importance is the worst sort of bondage. For every injury inflicted on another’s circumstances, the predator stabs deeply into his own heart. He is quite helpless, since his lusts have no limits—he will never be satisfied by the accumulation of trophies. 
 
I look at the things I say I need to be happy, and almost all of them are extraneous, mere expressions of my vanity. As I rely upon them more and more, I transform myself into a slave, even as I insist that I am free. No, I am quite aware of the trap, though I’m not sure how to escape from it. 
 
How quickly diversions become necessities, and luxuries are confused with requirements! When I wake in the morning, I now ask myself how I can make do with less, rather than making a scene about how I have been denied the right to consume more. If I don’t do this deliberately, I find myself treating my worst vices as if they were entitlements. Like karma, habit’s a bitch. 
 
When Adam delved and Eve span, 
who was then the gentleman? 
 
Nobility is in the mind and the heart, not in the paraphernalia. 

—Reflection written in 1/2013