Seneca, Epistles 104.8

ID: 9FFD1612-19F1-4AC3-BE89-938A4A65CBAF
TRANSLATOR: Long
CATEGORY: [[id:8D07F2BD-C53A-4551-A615-7C2FE5925A11][Desire]]
AUTHOR: Seneca
TEXT: Epistles

How well some people would be doing if they could get away from themselves! Their pressures and anxieties are failings and terrors are all due to themselves. What good is it to cross the sea and move to a new city? If you want to scape from your troubles, what you need is not to be in a different place but to be a different person. Imagine you have come to Athens or Rhodes. Does the character of the place make any difference? Yo'll be taking your own character with you. You'll still regard wealth as good, and be tortured by what you falsely and most unhappily believe to be your poverty. No matter how much you own, the mere fact that someone has more will make you think that your resources are insufficient by exactly the amount that his are greater. You will go on regarding public office as good, and be upset when one fellow is elected consul and another even reelected. You will be jealous whenever you read someone's name a number of times in the official records. Your craze for success will still be so great that you think no one is behind you if anyone is ahead of you.