Don't let bad times make you a bad person: Stoic advice from Seneca

Executive overview

Bad times — elections, pandemics, collapsing public trust — are not in our control. What remains in our control is whether those times corrupt our character. Seneca, Rome's greatest playwright and most powerful political broker, wrote extensively on this tension.

No situation takes away our ability to do what we think is right.

Character under pressure

• Marcus Aurelius: the real harm of dark times is letting them affect your character
• Resentment, despair, and revenge are choices — so is remaining decent
• Every obstacle is a chance to be the person the world needs you to be
• Bad people can hurt us; only we can make ourselves bad

Who Seneca was

• Born in a Roman province; became Rome's most famous playwright and top political broker
• A line from one of his plays is graffiti on a wall at Pompeii
• Not a pen-and-ink philosopher — a thinker and a doer, in the arena
• Born the same year as Jesus; both died at the hands of the state

Seneca's key ideas

• On the Shortness of Life: life isn't too short — we waste it; many people's only achievement is accumulating years
• Euthymia: the Greek word for the tranquility he pursued — knowing why you're here, what matters, what's in your control
• Comparing yourself to others steals joy; what others do or say does not pertain to your work
• Philosophy measured by progress: "I know I'm making progress because I'm becoming a better friend to myself"
• Seneca quoted Epicurus freely — "I'll quote a bad author if the line is good"

Daily practice

• Write to a friend daily; find one thing each day that makes you a little stronger or wiser
• Linger on the works of master thinkers — read them over and over, let them digest
• Small, consistent inputs beat rare enormous epiphanies

Seneca's flaws as a lesson

• Serving Nero corrupted him; he flattered himself that he was "the adult in the room"
• Stoics more removed from power — Epictetus, Thrasea — saw Nero's danger more clearly
• Having ideals and falling short is better than not aspiring at all