Seneca, Moral Letters 78.6

This, too, will help—to turn the mind aside to thoughts of other things and thus to depart from pain. 
 
Call to mind what honorable or brave deeds you have done; consider the good side of your own life. 
 
Run over in your memory those things which you have particularly admired. 
 
Then think of all the brave men who have conquered pain: of him who continued to read his book as he allowed the cutting out of varicose veins; of him who did not cease to smile, though that very smile so enraged his torturers that they tried upon him every instrument of their cruelty. 
 
If pain can be conquered by a smile, will it not be conquered by reason? 
 
You may tell me now of whatever you like—of colds, hard coughing-spells that bring up parts of our entrails, fever that parches our very vitals, thirst, limbs so twisted that the joints protrude in different directions; yet worse than these are the stake, the rack, the red-hot plates, the instrument that reopens wounds while the wounds themselves are still swollen and that drives their imprint still deeper. 
 
Nevertheless, there have been men who have not uttered a moan amid these tortures. 
 
“More yet!” says the torturer; but the victim has not begged for release. 
 
“More yet!” he says again; but no answer has come. 
 
“More yet!” the victim has smiled, and heartily, too. Can you not bring yourself, after an example like this, to make a mock at pain? 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 78 
 
I am still surprised at how often people will assume that they have no control over their own thoughts, as if they were little more than passive moods, coming and going like the weather. Has pop psychology’s stress on the unconscious somehow convinced us to neglect the very power of deliberate choice, leaving us as mere victims of circumstance? 
 
But I can’t get it out of my head!” 
 
Yes, I am quite familiar with that problem, having long permitted my impressions to boss me around. A feeling, whether from the outside or from the inside, may indeed arrive unbidden, though I will ultimately decide what sort of attention it receives. 
 
“But it’s too strong!” 
 
My moment of insight finally came when I realized how the sensation only seemed indomitable because I had already judged it to be so. It will be what it must be, even as the judgement will stand on its own terms; mind rules itself, and has the final say of what it permits to enter into itself. When I decide to say either “yes” or “no”, what power does the object of sense have to coerce me? 
 
So, if the experience brings me pain, I possess the choice to inform it with meaning. If a man does me evil, I retain the option of responding with good. If something has been taken away, I am free to give of myself, from an inexhaustible reserve of good will. As much as you may hinder my body, you have no weapon against my spirit, for which the sole defeat is a voluntary surrender. 
 
I’m afraid I don’t have an extensive catalog of my own noble deeds to fall back on, as I am still working on the basics, so I either reflect upon the excellence of others, or I find comfort in some unassuming deeds, modest in scale yet pure in purpose. Once my awareness is redirected, with both subtlety and firmness, I have refused to let myself be bullied. 
 
I don’t have to take the bait. I can smile whenever I am cursed. While I am not yet a St. Lawrence, I can follow the example of my tomcat, Jack, who is a miniature master of endurance. The point is not to be bigger or tougher than the other guy, but to become better than my former self. 
 
The pain is a part of the deal, an occasion to hone the virtues. With my eyes on the prize, the cost now turns out to be trivial. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

IMAGE: Palma il Giovane, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1582)