Note: This post is part of a weekly series called ‘Seneca Sundays’. Each week, I reflect on one of Seneca’s ‘Moral Letters to Lucilius’, and summarise the most practical and useful principles to share with you.
A common theme among Seneca’s letters is his encouragement to “withdraw from the world” and focus on philosophy and pursuing virtue.
When applied to a modern context, Seneca is talking about the rat race. It’s a critique on our insatiable appetite for work, long hours, and productivity. It’s a warning against consumerism, and our desire to keep up with everyone else’s expectations.
In this letter, Seneca starts from the assumption that Lucilius already wants to withdraw from the world, and offers numerous ideas on how he can achieve it.
1. No one is forcing you to pursue wealth.
Seneca kicks off by saying that the pressure to pursue wealth is self imposed. And that the ability to bring that desire under control is admirable.
Seneca isn’t saying wealth is bad, or that we should avoid it. He was one of the richest people in Rome after all. His point is rather about our rabid pursuit of wealth, and how it can easily become unhealthy.
2. It’s not weak to step back from what has previously hurt you. It’s wise.
It’s easy to want more. To take on more than we can handle. To pursue growth, status, and success. But this path can be dangerous. Like a violent and fickle storm, the pursuit of more can throw us around.
Seneca says when a wise person “sees the dangers, uncertainties, and hazards in which he was formerly tossed about, he will withdraw, – not turning his back to the foe, but falling back little by little to a safe position.”
I think this point is especially relevant to mental health in today’s workplace. I’ve seen brilliant and talented people over the past few years take time off to protect against, or recover, from burnout.
Most simply worked too hard, for too long.
And almost all of them admitted that the gain wasn’t worth the cost.
Seneca then encourages us to be careful about what we take on: “A good man will not waste himself upon mean and discreditable work, or be busy merely for the sake of being busy.” Instead our “perseverance should have an object that is worth while.”
3. Don’t complain about situations you’ve chosen.
Have you ever met someone who wants success, but doesn’t want to do the work to get there? Seneca comments there are many who “love the reward of their hardships, but curse the hardships themselves.”
He goes on to say we shouldn’t flinch under a burden, but rather wrestle with the task we’ve chosen for ourselves, such as a challenging job or project. We can’t grow unless we’re challenged, which is to say, “No man is brave and earnest if he avoids danger, if his spirit does not grow with the very difficulty of his task.”
Seneca then asks us to look at people who complain, and how many times they’re “lingering of their own free will in a situation which they find hard.” Poignantly, Seneca then comments, “there are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.”
4. Commit wholeheartedly, and live nobly.
When a person jumps out of a boat, they can’t “swim ashore and take their baggage with them.”
Which is to say, if you want something—whether that be withdrawing from the rat race, as Seneca describes, or something else entirely—we must commit wholeheartedly to that venture.
Even if that means leaving some luxuries behind.
Seneca ends the letter with a thoughtful paradox: “Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.”