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.
This letter is about influence. Seneca says all experience rubs off on us in some way—people, events, jobs. So it’s our duty to put ourselves in a place, and surround ourselves with people, who are going to make us better.
1. Everything influences us
“I never bring back home the same character that I took abroad with me. The calm within me is disturbed; some of the foes that I have beaten return again… the friend who lives in luxury can soften us, the rich neighbour can make us jealous, the slanderous companion can rub some of their rust off on us.”
We may not like to admit it, but everything influences us.
Once we’re aware of this inevitable influence, we can make changes to increase the good, and minimise the bad.
2. Better. Mutual. Teach.
Spend time with people who make you better.
Make sure it’s mutual—ensuring your actions can inspire them too.
And then teach others, because that’s how we solidify our learning.
3. Don’t worry if your learning is private, or if your audience is small
Seneca ends the letter by encouraging Lucilius that his study is not a wasted effort.
“The following was nobly spoken by one someone or other, for it is doubtful who the author was; they asked him what was the object of all this study applied to an art that would reach but very few. He replied: ‘I am content with few, content with one, content with none at all.’”