Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy.
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Seneca | On Facing Hardships
In a letter known today as On Facing Hardships, Seneca wrote,
Spite of all, do you still chafe and complain, not understanding that, in all the evils to which you refer, there is really only one—the fact that you do chafe and complain? If you ask me, I think that for a man, there is no misery unless there is something in the universe that he thinks miserable. I shall not endure myself on that day when I find anything unendurable.
I am ill, but that is a part of my lot. … I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing. No, that was an understatement; it was an inevitable thing.
Such affairs come by order and not by accident. If you will believe me, it is my inmost emotions that I am just now disclosing to you: when everything seems to go hard and uphill, I have trained myself not merely to obey God but to agree with His decisions. I follow Him because my soul wills it, and not because I must. Nothing will ever happen to me that I shall receive with ill humor or with a wry face. I shall pay up all my taxes willingly. Now all the things that cause us to groan or recoil are part of the tax of life—things, my dear Lucilius, which you should never hope and never seek to escape.
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