Lacks focus and consistency
Is settled and calm. Lives in the present moment. Anticipates the future without anxiety.
Feels unsettled. Tries to flee the self. Worries about the future.
Has a guiding purpose
Is blown in different directions by the winds of chance
Realizes that unhappiness is caused by our opinions about things
Thinks that other people or external things make us unhappy
Knows how to avoid or how to deconstruct extreme negative emotions
Experiences extreme negative emotions on a regular basis and doesn’t know why
Overcomes adversity by transforming it into something positive or admirable. Keeps moving forward.
Suffers from adversity and discouragement. Feels thwarted by setbacks.
Is grateful to the universe
Complains frequently
Is traveling on the way to freedom and tranquility by learning how to make sound mental judgments
Is enslaved by false opinions, which result in negative emotions and suffering
Fig 3: Seneca’s descriptions of how a Stoic differs from a typical non-Stoic, including metaphors related to travel.
While Seneca advocates focus and having a destination, he certainly wasn’t some kind of joyless “all work and no play” kind of person. Having leisure and free time was something he valued greatly. He even wrote a work On Leisure, which you can still read today.12 Seneca’s interests included viticulture, or growing grapes, so he must have been a winemaker. While he gave up drinking wine later in life, he advocated drinking for some people, even up to the edge of intoxication, because of the freeing effect wine can have on the mind.
For Seneca, having leisure time was one of the finest things in life. But leisure is only fulfilling if the mind is stable and well-developed enough to really enjoy it. That’s why philosophy, for Seneca, was an essential companion for living a good and happy life. A wise person, for example, will be able to travel and get something profound out of the trip because his or her mind is prepared for the experience, while others just “embark on one journey after another and exchange spectacle after spectacle.”13 In terms of deep enjoyment, what you actually get out of life depends on what you bring to it.
While a wise person or Stoic in training should have a calm and steady mind, many people are restless, discontent, unsettled, and easily irritated. Writing about Seneca’s thought, philosopher and historian Mark Holowchak offers a significant insight into why restless people feel that travel will improve their emotional state. It has to do with expectancy, “the hope that tomorrow will be better than today.” Expectancy, he explains, is usually created through the combination of distress and desire. Distress is the feeling that some ill is present now, and desire comes from “the feeling that some good is lurking on the horizon to replace the ill.”14 In short, if we could just get “there,” things would be better.
While Seneca believed that some locations are unhealthy (think beach town, during spring break), he said, “We should live with this belief: ‘I was not born for one small corner. This entire world is my homeland.’”15 Like the other Roman Stoics, Seneca thought that someone could be happy almost anywhere, even if subjected to exile. As he noted, “The place where one lives doesn’t contribute much to tranquility. It’s the mind that makes everything agreeable to itself. I’ve seen gloomy people in a cheerful, pleasant villa, and people working happily in complete isolation.”16
It’s always possible that travel might help some people remove their dissatisfactions with life, based on the belief that things will be better somewhere else. But that belief is more likely to be a case of what some psychologists call the “grass is greener syndrome,” based on the saying “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.” While not an official psychological diagnosis, it’s certainly a real thing, and it accounts for many failed relationships. Because when relationships end, someone often believes, “My life would be better with someone else.” So instead of watering or tending the lawn one already has, a lawn elsewhere seems to be more desirable, or greener, even though that’s usually a fantasy.
Sometimes, the grass might be greener elsewhere, and another lawn might be a real destination. But people who frequently suffer from expectancy are always likely to be dissatisfied and restless, because wherever they go, there they are. Since you can’t escape yourself, the solution to psychological unhappiness usually lies within.
HAVING A GUIDING PURPOSE
For Seneca, having a destination is identical to having a guiding purpose, which is the real point of studying Stoic philosophy in the first place.
Seneca advocates a “steady and calm way of life that follows a single path.” But, as he says, many people jump from one purpose to another, frequently changing their plans. It’s like the winds of chance blow them here or there. “There are only a few,” he says, “who plan their lives and affairs by a guiding purpose.” The rest are just swept along, some violently, like objects floating down a fast-moving river. The alternative, he writes, is that “we should decide what we really want, and stand by that decision.”17
People make mistakes, he says, because they consider the parts of life, but not life as a whole. Similarly, as an archer has a target, we should have an overall goal of life. As he notes in a memorable line, “When someone doesn’t know what port he’s sailing for, no wind is favorable.” In other words, without a destination, people’s lives are ruled by chance.18
Fortunately, he claims, a compass does exist to guide us safely. And that guide is not a religion, a revealed scripture, or anything external, but our own power of clear thinking: “Whenever you want to know what to seek or avoid, look to your Highest Good, the aim of your entire life,” because whatever we do should be in harmony with that.19
While the idea that “a person should live according to their Highest Good” might sound a bit strange to our modern ears, it made perfect sense to the Roman Stoics. They also knew exactly what that Highest Good was for them: it was always striving to live in a way that is honorable and rational, with excellence of character, by aligning your life with the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice.
CHAPTER 6
How to Tame Adversity
THE CITY THAT DISAPPEARED IN A FLASH
In the summer of the year 64, Seneca received some terrible news from a friend. The Roman colony of Lugdunum—the modern-day city of Lyon, France—had suddenly burned to the ground in a freak fire. Adding to the shock, the city was destroyed in just a few minutes. Seneca called the fire at Lyon “so unexpected and unheard of, because it was without precedent.”1 As he pointed out, it is rare for fires to consume everything so fiercely that nothing is left behind.
Seneca devotes an entire missive, Letter 91, to the destruction of Lyon by fire. In terms of the powerful feelings it evokes, it’s one of his most compelling works. He lyrically describes the frailty of everything created by humans and by nature, and how things can turn into their opposites almost instantly. Peace turns into war, a calm day into a terrible storm. Prosperity collapses into poverty, health into illness. The accomplishments of an entire lifetime can be lost in a single day. An hour is enough time to destroy an empire. “The reality,” he writes, “is that things develop slowly, but the way to ruin comes quickly.”2
The fire of Lyon moved so quickly, and was so unexpected, the city didn’t stand a chance. But misfortune isn’t uncommon. It’s destined to strike us all.