This Is Your Path
Two thousand years ago in Rome, there was someone just like you.
Someone who was doing their best, who was working hard, who was living within their means.
Someone who studied Stoicism to do away with distractions, to seek inner calm and peace, to achieve their potential so that they could improve not only their life but the lives of those around them.
And yet …
It still felt like something was assailing their mind.
The chaos and uncertainty of the world remained a distraction. Despite great effort, envy and comparison of others continued to creep in.
Why am I not getting the benefits of my practice? this person asked.
Why do the smallest obstacles halt me in my tracks?
Why can’t I be more disciplined in my work and studies?
Why does my lack of money make me feel so small and inadequate?
Why can’t I practice the virtue of courage with any consistency?
Why do I always seem to retreat to my bad habits?
Have you ever felt like that? Like all your work and effort wasn’t adding up? That the chaos and uncertainty of modern life was just too overwhelming?
Though it may surprise you, even the greatest of Stoic philosophers would say yes.
That Roman someone was a man named Serenus, who wrote to Seneca in his moment of doubt. And Seneca affirmed he too felt that way sometimes and had long pondered what to do about it.
“What we are seeking,” he wrote, “is how the mind may always pursue a steady and favorable course, may be well-disposed towards itself, and may view its condition with joy, and suffer no interruption of this joy, but may abide in a peaceful state, being never uplifted nor ever cast down.”
What we are seeking, in one word, is tranquility. But that is not a state of mind someone can give us.
Tranquility is something we must earn for ourselves.
But how?
Seneca would advise us not to seek comfort outside ourselves, to not retreat on vacation or into solitary study — after all, wherever you go, there you are.
And he would advise us not to distract ourselves with “busy idleness” — allowing our email inbox to dictate our actions and our social media feeds to order our moods.
No. What we need is purpose. And we need to commit to that purpose, walk the path that Fortune designed specifically for us.
We need to know the difference between what is urgent and important, what work we find meaningful and which we find an obligation, and what in life is essential and what is inessential.
That’s what a Stoic does.
Thank you for reading!
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