Suppose we do what Hannibal did—check the course of events, give up the war, and give over our bodies to be coddled. Everyone would rightly blame us for our untimely sloth, a thing fraught with peril even for the victor, to say nothing of one who is only on the way to victory.
And we have even less right to do this than those followers of the Carthaginian flag; for our danger is greater than theirs if we slacken, and our toil is greater than theirs even if we press ahead.
Fortune is fighting against me, and I shall not carry out her commands. I refuse to submit to the yoke; nay rather, I shake off the yoke that is upon me—an act which demands even greater courage.
And we have even less right to do this than those followers of the Carthaginian flag; for our danger is greater than theirs if we slacken, and our toil is greater than theirs even if we press ahead.
Fortune is fighting against me, and I shall not carry out her commands. I refuse to submit to the yoke; nay rather, I shake off the yoke that is upon me—an act which demands even greater courage.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 51
We are quick to accuse a worker of being lazy, or a solider of being a coward, and the old are especially fond of complaining how the young are pampered. Now making money matters, and war matters, and the rules of discipline matter, but none if it amounts to a hill of beans compared to the responsibility of standing up for our very humanity. Once I surrender my integrity, I have already abandoned everything else.
Where more can be gained, more can also be lost; with greater rewards come greater risks. If they take away my job, I will be on the street, and if I fall in battle, I will lose my body, and worst of all, if I compromise my conscience, I will surrender my soul.
At stake is who I choose to be, far more important than what could possibly happen to me. And that is why the work is so much harder and the vocation so much nobler. It would be nice if we could give as many parades for those who attend to their values as we do for those who flaunt their good fortune.
And what we usually call success or achievement really is just a matter of luck, isn’t it? We make the mistake of assuming that the merit is in the circumstances, yet those are largely beyond our power. What is truly within our power, the capacity for virtue, gets overlooked in favor of conditions that have little to do with us. The essential is confused with the accidental.
Most of the people I know are constantly struggling to beat Fortune at her own game, failing to recognize the inherent contradiction in claiming that our happiness should be defined by what isn’t rightfully our own to begin with. Other people will make their own choices, and events will unfold in their own way, so nothing could make us more miserable than betting everything on a roll of the dice.
This is why I take Seneca’s exhortation so seriously. Instead of trying to make deals with Fortune, I refuse to accept any of her terms whatsoever; once I have given her an inch, she will immediately take a mile. The victory is in having the conviction to rise above her whims.
We are quick to accuse a worker of being lazy, or a solider of being a coward, and the old are especially fond of complaining how the young are pampered. Now making money matters, and war matters, and the rules of discipline matter, but none if it amounts to a hill of beans compared to the responsibility of standing up for our very humanity. Once I surrender my integrity, I have already abandoned everything else.
Where more can be gained, more can also be lost; with greater rewards come greater risks. If they take away my job, I will be on the street, and if I fall in battle, I will lose my body, and worst of all, if I compromise my conscience, I will surrender my soul.
At stake is who I choose to be, far more important than what could possibly happen to me. And that is why the work is so much harder and the vocation so much nobler. It would be nice if we could give as many parades for those who attend to their values as we do for those who flaunt their good fortune.
And what we usually call success or achievement really is just a matter of luck, isn’t it? We make the mistake of assuming that the merit is in the circumstances, yet those are largely beyond our power. What is truly within our power, the capacity for virtue, gets overlooked in favor of conditions that have little to do with us. The essential is confused with the accidental.
Most of the people I know are constantly struggling to beat Fortune at her own game, failing to recognize the inherent contradiction in claiming that our happiness should be defined by what isn’t rightfully our own to begin with. Other people will make their own choices, and events will unfold in their own way, so nothing could make us more miserable than betting everything on a roll of the dice.
This is why I take Seneca’s exhortation so seriously. Instead of trying to make deals with Fortune, I refuse to accept any of her terms whatsoever; once I have given her an inch, she will immediately take a mile. The victory is in having the conviction to rise above her whims.
—Reflection written in 4/2013
IMAGE: Frans Francken the Younger, Allegory of Fortune (c. 1620)
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