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Peace of Mind, by Seneca
"I have lost nothing; I carry all my possessions with me."
Matt Karamazov
November 13, 2023
📚 Hey, good evening!
Question for you:
If your house burned down and you lost everything, would you be able to just calmly walk away from the wreckage of your old life and say something like:
“Nothing I lost belonged to me.”
Well way back in the 4th century BCE, that same thing happened to the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes, at which point he had only this to say:
“I have lost nothing; I carry all my possessions with me.”
Peace of mind is what he had, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with what he owned or what kind of challenges he was facing.
The Stoic philosopher, Seneca, wrote an entire book called Peace of Mind, and it’s the featured breakdown this week at the Stairway to Wisdom.
The breakdown itself is about 9,100 words, covering all the Key Ideas, Book Notes, Action Steps, and more.
It’s also free, by the way.
It’ll only take you about 35 minutes to read the whole thing, and in it, we’ll discuss how we can begin to realize the true value of time and get better at investing ours.
We’ll learn how we can bear losses bravely and leave ourselves less exposed to the vicissitudes of fate; why freedom/discipline are inextricably linked, and how there's room for both in a life well lived.
And we'll learn how to laugh at misfortune and find the good in life, even when those all around us can't stop focusing on the negative.
You can read the full breakdown here, but I’ll give you a little preview in this email so you can decide whether to check out the full one later.
Again, totally free.
I should actually say “free for right NOW,” because it’s going back behind the paywall very shortly.
Then it’s just for members only at the Stairway to Wisdom.
Alright now, let’s attain some…
This Book is For:
*People who are looking for guidance, timeless wisdom, and effective strategies for dealing with a complex, sometimes tragically unfair world that hasn't changed in more than 2,000 years.
*Students of philosophy and history who are interested in learning about one of the greatest examples of a real person who actually lived the truth of their philosophy until the very end, and who embodied the most noble and virtuous qualities that a human being can ever aspire to emulate.
*Anyone who's going through a rough time right now, and who may have lost hope once before, but who nevertheless still believes that it's not over until it's over.
*Everyone who may be worried about the future or harboring regrets about the past, and who is looking for specific mental tools and ways of thinking that will help them find peace, calm, and equanimity no matter what the circumstances.
Summary:
“What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, nay, the greatest thing of all, and one which raises a man almost to the level of a god. The Greeks call this calm steadiness of mind euthymia, and Democritus's treatise upon it is excellently written: I call it peace of mind.”
-Seneca, Peace of Mind
No one who's never had to overcome any tremendously difficult challenges in their life is qualified to teach you about how to achieve peace of mind.
There's not a single person on earth who can be said to have had an "easy life" (we all encounter difficulties, suffer losses, get sick, and eventually have to face our own mortality), but Lucius Annaeus Seneca is uniquely qualified to teach us about how to claim tranquility of mind because he's been through it all.
Seneca is one of the most influential Roman Stoic philosophers, and although he became tremendously wealthy during his lifetime, he was exiled from the Empire twice (once to Egypt as a young man, and then later to Corsica), came up against many of the same kinds of challenges we all face in our lives, and was eventually ordered to commit suicide by the psychopathic dictator, Emperor Nero, whom Seneca tutored from a very young age.
Seneca had to learn early on that the world just isn't fair: good intentions don't always lead to good outcomes, people who claim to love you will turn their backs on you when it's convenient for them to do so, great achievements often go unrecognized, and then we die at the end.
Luckily for us, it was also around the time of his exile to Corsica that he started writing, and for thousands of years, people of all ages, abilities, and temperaments have come to Seneca's works for wise, soothing, sage advice about how to take the worst the world has to throw at them and still rise to their feet again afterward.
Peace of Mind (De Tranquillitate Animi) is a dialogue written during the years 49 to 62 A.D. concerning the state of mind of Seneca's friend Serenus and how to cure him of his various mental afflictions - anxiety, fear, worry, pessimism, apathy, unhealthy desires, and despair.
Seneca is the ideal teacher because he has overcome all these incredible ordeals throughout his life and never allowed himself to be laid low permanently by pessimism or fear.
He even believed that people should have to face obstacles such as the ones he had to face, or else they would never know what they were truly capable of. Moreover, he also said that we "suffer more often in imagination than in reality," meaning that problems of the mind can be solved with the mind.
There's a lot more to say about Seneca's personal history, and Ryan Holiday believes that he's the most interesting Stoic of all. He's also open to various criticisms, as most of us are, but it's true that he lived the full truth of his philosophy and was willing to follow it all the way to the end of the path, whither it may lead.
In fact, even though he was one of the wealthiest individuals to have ever lived, he voluntarily used to sleep on the hard floor, eat the worst, least edible types of food, wear raggedy old clothes, and go without all the luxuries traditionally afforded to people of his noble position. He always remained willing to relinquish it all, and would never have tried to hold onto his material wealth if it meant sacrificing his peace of mind.
When Emperor Nero, one of the worst Roman Emperors of all, ordered Seneca to commit suicide after a failed assassination plot, Seneca did so calmly, with poise, and all the while displaying a strength of character that has served as a model for the Good Life for thousands of years.
As I've said, Seneca leaves himself and the rest of the Stoics open to various criticisms, but not so many or so severe as to devalue the worth of his advice or the desirability of keeping Peace of Mind close by at all times.
In the Key Ideas sections below, we'll discuss how we can begin to realize the true value of time and get better at investing ours; how we can bear losses bravely and leave ourselves less exposed to the vicissitudes of fate; why freedom/discipline are inextricably linked, and how there's room for both in a life well lived; and we'll learn how to laugh at misfortune and find the good in life, even when those all around us can't stop focusing on the negative.
Inside the mind is where it all begins. That's where the majority of our work can and must be done.
We don't see the world as it is, but as we are. So it makes sense to clean and maintain the "viewing window" through which we experience life, see opportunities, and observe reality. When we learn how to calm the mind, we realize that we're capable of controlling a lot more that happens in our lives as well. Seneca's beautiful little book can help us do this.
Over the last two thousand years, he's been a close friend to millions, and by reading Peace of Mind and experimenting with his philosophy, he can be ours too.
Key Ideas:
#1: Nothing Is Worth More Than This Day
“No one that will give me no compensation worth such a loss shall ever rob me of a day.”
-Serenus
Anyone who ever says "It's only five minutes" doesn't understand the true value of time. It's never "just" an hour, a minute, or even a second. According to Serenus in the quote above, we should allow no one to rob us of a single day who cannot afford to give us something at least as priceless in return.
In his book, Die with Zero, the investor Bill Perkins reminds us that we are constantly balancing three somewhat independent resources throughout our lifespan: time, health, and money. Rarely in one human life do all three peak at the exact same time, so we always have to manage the tradeoff.
Where time is concerned, it's the only resource that can never be replaced. You can almost always make more money, and sometimes regain your health, but you can never, ever, ever replace lost time. You can't make new old friends, and this is the youngest you will ever be.
We can draw a few separate conclusions from all this. First, we might acknowledge to ourselves that we admire someone like Warren Buffett's wealth and wisdom, but he's in his nineties. Who among us would willingly trade places with him now?
The wildly successful entrepreneur Alex Hormozi overheard something similar that also had a deep impact on him. Currently, he runs a portfolio of companies doing more than $100M in revenue, but once, he overheard someone say a version of the following:
“When I was 20 I wanted to be a millionaire…Now that I’m a millionaire, I want to be 20.”
It made him realize that when he's 40, he’d rather be 32 (his age) with nothing, just to be 32 (again). That was a scroll-stopper for sure when I first read it.
But okay. You've read the Serenus quote. You've read the Alex Hormozi quote. You've heard what Bill Perkins had to say. You probably agree that your time is insanely important and needs to be protected at all costs. Are you going to live as though this is true? Are your actions going to be aligned with what you profess to believe about the value of time? When will you start living as though you believe it?
It's a common refrain among the Stoics that we shouldn't fear death; rather, we should fear never beginning to live. The best among them lived each moment as though it were a wet towel: they acted as though their desperate, dying wish was to drain as much life, joy, and happiness from it as they possibly could, and this attitude never left them for as long as Fortune allowed them to grace the surface of this beautiful green Earth.
When are you going to start living like that? Will it be tomorrow? Is tomorrow coming? Or will you squeeze the life out of that wet towel NOW, as though your life depended on it? Because it does.
Of course, you can just as easily drive yourself crazy consciously trying to live every single moment intensely, and constantly stress yourself out wondering if you're actually living as "hard" as you can. Nobody is advocating that.
But a life is a terrible thing to waste, yours especially, and if someone else is demanding part of your one and only life and not offering you appropriate compensation for it, you have to wonder what kind of value you're actually placing on your time - or your life.
#2: Nothing I Have Lost Belonged to Me
“We ought at any rate to diminish the extent of our property, in order to be less exposed to the assaults of fortune: those men whose bodies can be within the shelter of their armor, are more fitted for war than those whose huge size everywhere extends beyond it, and exposes them to wounds.”
-Seneca
It's said that back in the 4th century BCE, the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes suffered the loss of all of his wealth when his house burned to the ground, at which point he had only this to say:
"I have lost nothing; I carry all my possessions with me."
There are similar versions of that story attributed to various Stoic philosophers, but it has always stood out to me as a perfect example of the fact that everything we "possess" is simply on loan from the universe.
This applies to our wealth, our possessions, our family and friends, and even our physical bodies. At best, we are borrowing those things from Fortune (or God, Nature, the Universe, etc.), and at some point, we will be asked to return them.
According to the principles of Stoic philosophy, we must do this willingly and honorably, if not happily, and not complain about the unfairness of losing something that never really belonged to us in the first place. We knew the rules of the game the whole time: life is temporary, and everything gets thrown back into the center of the table at the end of our final breath.
Rather than despair over this eventuality, we can see it as an opportunity to embody strength of character and virtue, to act in such a way that becomes a human being - to take it on the philosophical chin, and express gratitude that we were able to possess those things for as long as we did, instead of complaining about losing them.
I also love the advice that Seneca gives above about reducing our "harm surface area," so to speak. In the same way that if you have a smaller body you leave less of yourself exposed to the weapons of your enemies, if you own fewer possessions you have less to lose.
There's nothing intrinsic to having money that is necessarily a bad thing; rich or poor, a person's wealth says virtually nothing about their character. But there's something to be said for the person who's just as happy with little as they are with a lot, and who can willingly relinquish the wealth that was loaned to them when the time comes. For as Seneca says:
“How far happier is he who is indebted to no man for anything except for what he can deprive himself of with the greatest ease!”
#3: Discipline Equals Freedom
“Yet moderation is wholesome both in freedom and in wine.”
It sounds paradoxical at first, but practicing self-discipline can open up much greater freedom later on, and living with too much freedom without balancing it with at least reasonable amounts of self-discipline will lead you stumbling into a life you can barely stand.
Seneca's insight is that the more we discipline our own minds, the more we allow mental freedom to become our default state of being. It's the mind that's susceptible to being yanked around by all these addictions and negative influences that's not free.
Just like you wouldn't drink 8 bottles of wine at some party (right??), you also wouldn't want to give yourself unlimited freedom either, because that disorienting level of freedom often comes with devastating consequences. The "freedom" to eat 6 hamburgers a day will imprison you inside a hospital room decades earlier than if you had exercised the discipline to control your desires.
You can furnish plenty more of your own examples, but the bottom line is that a life of freedom, joy, and purpose is built on a foundation of unwavering discipline and commitment.
Once you fully commit to something, such as a marriage (if that's right for you), you get to experience the freedom that comes with cementing serious (but wonderful) long-term bonds with someone who will be your best friend, and your biggest champion, for the rest of your life.
In the same way that the existence of darkness enables you to perceive light, that East creates West, that there is no "up" without a "down," discipline equals freedom, whereas total, absolute freedom often simply leads to slavery.
Book Notes:
“Are you not ashamed of yourself, you who gaze upon riches with astonished admiration?
Look upon the universe: you will see the gods quite bare of property, and possessing nothing though they give everything.
Do you think that this man who has stripped himself of all fortuitous accessories is a pauper, or one like to the immortal gods?”
“Diogenes’s only slave ran away from him, and when he was pointed out to Diogenes, he did not think him worth fetching back.
‘It is a shame,’ he said, ‘that Manes should be able to live without Diogenes, and that Diogenes should not be able to live without Manes.’
He seems to me to have said, ‘Fortune, mind your own business: Diogenes has nothing left that belongs to you.’”
“He will not complain of Fortune, but will say, ‘I thank you for what I have had possession of: I have managed your property so as largely to increase it, but since you order me, I give it back to you and return it willingly and thankfully.”
“He who fears death will never act as becomes a living man.”
“I have now, my beloved Serenus, given you an account of what things can preserve peace of mind, what things can restore it to us, what can arrest the vices which secretly undermine it: yet be assured, that none of these is strong enough to enable us to retain so fleeting a blessing, unless we watch over our vacillating mind with intense and unremitting care.”
Action Steps:
So you've finished reading. What do you do now?
Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!
Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.
Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...
#1: Memento Mori
Memento mori, literally translated from Latin as "remember that you must die," is an important phrase in Stoic philosophy that was meant to remind people not to get too full of themselves or waste time as if they were going to live forever.
While it may not be the cheeriest thought one could dwell upon, I absolutely recommend doing so at least occasionally, because it does come with a lot of freedom.
You may find that when you zoom out and look at your problems - even your entire life - at the proper scale, a lot of what you felt was dreadfully important and alarming ceases to trouble you so much and you can think differently about the things that used to stress you out unnecessarily.
When you remember that you must die, is it really worth spending so much of your time consumed with anger and regret? Isn't there something more helpful, more...life-affirming that you could focus on instead?
There virtually always is, and it's one of the major assertions of the Stoics that death is not nearly as fearful as never beginning to live at all. So it pays to ask yourself (perhaps even multiple times a day): "Is there life before death?"
#2: Premeditatio Malorum
This is another Latin translation that means "premeditation of evils," or taking into account the possibility of bad things occurring before they actually happen.
As Seneca said, the unexpected blow lands heaviest, but if we're at least somewhat prepared for the obstacles that Life will throw into our path, we won't be as hurt or incapacitated when they inevitably do.
One mental strategy I've found particularly helpful is to accept the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen ahead of time, so if that most horrible tragedy doesn't happen, anything not as bad as that can be dealt with relatively easily.
So the next time you're worried about an upcoming presentation, you could prepare ahead of time for the possibility that it might be so bad and so poorly received that you actually do get fired and have to go out and get another job.
That's unlikely to happen, but if you're prepared for that ahead of time ("I can always find another job"), then even if the presentation goes horribly wrong, at least you'll still be employed and now you know what to work on for next time.
#3: Take It All Away
Seneca had the right idea when he would voluntarily deprive himself of pleasures and luxuries that most wealthy people of his day took for granted.
There are certainly levels to this game, so you don't have to give up everything you love doing all at once, but maybe you practice depriving yourself of small pleasures (restrict yourself to 2 coffees a day instead of 3, replace watching television with reading a book 2-3 nights a week), and then work your way up to more difficult challenges over time.
If you take it gradually and slowly introduce yourself to more arduous restrictions, you'll notice that you don't really miss those luxuries at all, and that you're perfectly happy without them.
"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."
-Tony Robbins
About the Author:
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca or Seneca the Younger; ca. 4BC–65AD) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was a tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero, who later forced him to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to have him assassinated.
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OK, that’s it for now…
More excellent book recommendations coming your way soon!
Again, the rest of the above breakdown is absolutely free (for now!), and you can find it right here.
What you see in this email is less than half of what you get at the Stairway to Wisdom. I left out most of the Book Notes, all the Questions to Stimulate Your Thinking, several of the Key Ideas, etc.
So there’s a lot more for you left to read if you enjoyed what you read in this email!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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