21 Ideas From Seneca That Have Made Me More Tranquil
Courtney and I decided to do some gardening in our backyard this month. My mom came over to help. She taught us about tree suckers and Lantanas and directed us as we dug holes, mixed fertilizer into the soil, and laid cedar mulch. As I was pushing in a rod for the drip irrigation, Courtney told me to make sure I was putting it in straight.
“Oh yeah, I know, I am.”
“So the reason I said something was because I’m actively watching you not putting it in straight.”
It was hard work, but I enjoyed every minute of it. We talked and laughed and we were all together.
It reminded me of George Horace Lorimer’s Letters From a Self-Made Merchant To His Son, when John Graham, recounting the early days of his marriage, gives his son this advice:
“Your Ma did the cooking, and I hustled for things to cook. . . . It was pretty rough sailing, you bet, but one way and another we managed to get a huge deal of satisfaction out of it, because we had made up our minds to take our fun as we went along. With most people happiness is something that is always just a day off. But I have made it a rule never to put off being happy till tomorrow. Don’t accept notes for happiness, because you’ll find that when they’re due they’re never paid, but just renewed for another thirty days.”
I just love that. Don’t accept notes for happiness.
It’s so easy to rush, to see the day as something to get through, to be anxious about what we still have to do, to think something’s lacking. It’s alarming how easy it is to remember to slow down and enjoy it. (On our fridge I wrote a reminder: Are you enjoying the day?)
When my time is up, when the next generation takes over, when the next family moves in with their own dreams and expectations and hopes and gardens, I want to be able to say, Have fun! I sure as hell did. I enjoyed my time here. I enjoyed the shit out of it.
Last month, I finished reading Seneca’s Letters on Ethics, which I’ve been making my way through since April. (See below!) He, of course, had a lot to say about enjoying life. He said that a tranquil mind is the ultimate good for a human being, the ultimate joy. And here’s the kicker: because tranquility is the ultimate good, any further delights are mere seasoning. Once you’ve satisfied hunger, eating more won’t make you more satisfied. What good is more water when your thirst is quenched?
But look at the hell we put ourselves through for what amounts to mere seasoning. We sacrifice time with the people we love, time doing the things we love for…what? The possibility of a slight enhancement? And usually, it’s not even that. Usually, it’s the complete opposite—a diminishment. A person will work a humdrum 9 to 5 to help pay their $600 car note. We stay up late watching TV and then are too tired to rise early and work on something we love. We TikTok without noticing the clock doing the same.
Tranquility. I’ve been thinking about this word nonstop. It’s beautiful. It’s our own inner source of strength and comfort. When everything around us is chaotic, it keeps us at peace. It’s light-hearted and cool-headed in adversity. It’s built on how we view things like happiness, virtue, anxiety, death, desire, and envy. And the best part is that tranquility is something you can have anywhere, anytime.
I found 21 ideas from Seneca’s Letters that have helped me to be more tranquil:
All virtue is equal; it can’t be measured in degrees. “Its magnitude is fixed”, it's complete in itself. And because virtue is the foundation for happiness, happiness cannot be measured in degrees either. To think that you’re “less happy” than someone means you’re not happy at all. In fact, you have the ability to be as happy as the happiest person in the world at this very instant because the happiest person in the world has nothing in terms of goodness—the source of true happiness—that you can’t claim for yourself right now. In a prison or mansion, each moment contains an opportunity to practice a virtue, so each moment is an opportunity for total happiness. “If one is not happy [in every situation] one cannot have attained the highest good.”
“The happy life is just one life.” It’s an error to think that someone who lives longer and more far-reaching lives better. The measure of a life is based on its fullness. If you’re fulfilled, what does it matter how someone else is fulfilled? One eats less, the other more. What difference does it make? Both are filled.
Death can happen at any time—far into the future or in the next instant. So if we fear death, it follows that we would have to be in constant fear. Same with anxiety. Anything can happen at any moment. If you’re anxious about one thing, what’s stopping you from being anxious about everything else?
Do whatever you can to get rid of your vices, even if it means ripping your heart out.
The healthier we think our mind, the sicker it is.
Suffering is not a good thing. But courageously suffering what we must is a good thing. I used this idea on the treadmill the other day (and have used it since). My legs were in pain and I was out of breath and I still had more to run. I thought about how nice it would be to lie on the couch with a cold bottle of Powerade. But then I thought, wait, Powerade on the couch might sound pleasant but it’s not actually good. My body might feel better on the couch, but it won’t increase my tranquility. If anything, it will diminish my tranquility because I didn’t follow through on something important. At this moment, the ultimate good is to stay on the treadmill.
The most dangerous threats are inherently short-lived.
What good is it to have done something great but against your will? If you complained while doing it? This is how people tear themselves apart; the body goes one way, the mind another. Reluctance is a foolish way to do anything. Willingness is the key. We should approach each task on our toes, not our heels.
Feelings cannot exist in the past or future; therefore, pain cannot exist there either.
A person’s excellence is found only in what is unique to human beings: sound judgment. It’s what separates us from plants and animals. Dogs can be louder than us. Whales can make a more soothing sound. Our uniqueness lies in our ability to judge properly. Only by sharpening our reasoning can we hope to attain the excellence of a human being.
Don’t give your mind over to whoever or whatever happens to be in your vicinity. Whether it’s people or advertisements or something online, keep your mind on the highest things. Have a conversation in your head with a philosopher instead of Joe Schmo you find yourself next to.
If you wish to be richer, don’t add to your riches, lessen your desires. If you wish to be more honorable, don’t add to your honors, lessen your desires. If you wish to have more pleasure, don’t add to your pleasures, lessen your desires. If you wish to live a full life into old age, don’t add to your years, lessen your desires.
It’s no big deal to shun extravagance—what’s admirable is to shun even necessities. It’s one thing to have contempt for fancy meals. But what about contempt for bread and water, even when you’re hungry and thirsty? ‘But I’ll starve!’ It’s unlikely you’ll actually starve. What’s more likely is that by lacking contempt for your bodily urges, you’ll lose something more important than a meal: you’ll lose command over yourself.
It’s rare that a person fears what he should.
If all of your actions are directed toward the right things, there is no need to fear anything because everything you do is simply what needs doing. Like the ants who go about their day putting the world in order as best they can, you simply do what you were made to do. What could be scary about that? I used this idea the other day at work, and it boosted my confidence and helped me think on my toes. I was giving a presentation, and a small hint of anxiety started to warm my chest. I thought, oh my gosh, stop being silly and overthinking it. This is my job. It’s no different from eating and sleeping and driving and being myself—I’m just doing what I do. There’s nothing to think about.
This led me to another thought. If everything you do is simply what you do, then there’s nothing to calculate, no reason to hesitate. There’s no “being brave”, there’s just being yourself. ‘That was a really brave thing for her to do.’ No, that was a really her thing for her to do. That’s what she does. She moves from one necessary activity to the next and regards the outcome for each as irrelevant.
Until you know what to pursue and what to avoid, all your traveling is wandering.
Our lifetime is short, a mere blip, the length of a pinprick. There are no vast amounts of time in our lives; how can there be a vast amount of basically nothing? When we say something happened “just now,” that covers a fair portion of our lives, including the past, because our whole lives are so short. So we must be mindful of how we spend even “small” amounts of time—they account for much of our life!
Wisdom means always wanting the same things and always rejecting the same things.
Not wanting is the same as having; either way, anxiety is relieved.
Grateful is the best state of being. It is divine. At the end of my life, I hope to leave grateful and without complaint, as Marcus Aurelius said, “like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.”
P.S if you liked any of these, leave a comment or reply to this email. I’d love to hear what stood out to you.
Books Read This Month:
-Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is hilarious. The protagonist, George Babbitt, is caricature-like—an outsized image of the American businessperson. Lewis Sinclair is hilarious in the matter-of-factness he describes what makes his characters tick. Like how Babbitt—the ultimate conformist—is proud of his top-of-the-line alarm clock, happy to wake to such a quality piece of equipment. On paper, he has it all. A lucrative job, a loving family, a big house. Still, he dreams of mistresses and is easily annoyed by his wife and kids. He rides high on boisterous small talk and hearty back-pats with people in his community, only to be irritated moments later when an old lady cuts him off in traffic…only to forget all about it when he gets into his office. It made me think about the silly things we get worked up about. Things we won’t remember next week. Things we won’t even remember in the next hour! Why not save ourselves the trouble and just not get worked up in the first place? The other day, I couldn’t find a parking spot at work and I found myself getting annoyed. Then I thought, Really? You’re getting irritated about this? That’s how Babbitt would react. And I immediately smiled and felt grateful that I have a wonderful job and it’s such a beautiful day and I’m so incredibly lucky to be alive and experience it.
-As I mentioned above, I’ve been working through Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius (The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca) by Seneca since April, and I finished it last month. It’s 124 letters Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius on things like joy, gratitude, friendship, ambition, tranquility, how to cope with grief, how to think about death, how to spend your time wisely, what’s worth desiring, what’s worth avoiding. You wonder, how can a book contain so much wisdom? How can a person contain so much wisdom? Reading his letters is like having a conversation with him, and who wouldn’t want to converse with one of the wisest people to have lived? There’s a reason his works have endured through time and why people continue to turn to his writings for comfort and guidance.
-So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson is hilarious. And deep and eye-opening. It’s about, well, public shaming—why it’s a problem and its scary, hidden costs. It’s also super entertaining.
-Oh my goodness, I LOVED When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub and Rich Cohen. I learned so much about how business works and how deals are made. Weintraub shares how he went from an industry nobody to taking Elvis Presley on a national tour—completely changing the touring business model in the process. And that’s just the start. It’s one entertaining story after another from a guy who had all the top celebrities—Sinatra, Elvis—on speed dial. You realize as you read that it’s a masterclass in confidence, coming up with ideas on the fly, building relationships, and getting things done. And that persistence is even more important than intelligence and connections. Above all, enjoy it. At the age of 72, he reflects, “Savor life, don’t press too hard, don’t worry too much.”
-Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I LOVED this one too. I’m obsessed. I was hesitant to read it for some reason, but I’m so glad I did. It’s one of the best books on creativity and authenticity I’ve read. Gilbert says the creative life is the best life, how we have treasures buried within us and that hunting for those treasures and bringing them forth is the most fulfilling way to live. I also loved her humility in her personal stories. While working on her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, she asked her then-boyfriend if she could include him in it. “What’s at stake?” he asked. “Nothing,” she replied. “Trust me—nobody reads my books.” To the reader, she continues, “Over twelve million people ended up reading that book.” It’s funny and inspiring. I highly, highly, highly recommend it.
Quotes I’m Reflecting On:
“We live for an instant, even less than an instant. But nature adds mockery to even this trivial span by giving it an appearance of longer extent—making one part infancy, another childhood, another youth, another gradual slope (so to speak) from youth to old age, another old age itself. How many steps for so short a climb!” -Seneca
“This is the real secret of life—to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.” -Alan Watts
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” -Robert Brault