塞内卡的信与智慧 Stoicism- Letters from a Sto...

“Letters from a Stoic”

*Living in accordance with nature & The acceptance of fate.

-Every individual must endure suffering, illness, the lost of loved ones, and deal with knowledge of their impending death.

-For the only safe harbor in this life’s tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us.

**Self-Sufficiency

-Fo no one is worthy of a God unless he has paid no heed to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to insure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing.

-…not regarding as valuable anything that is capable of being taken away. He is contended with himself. This is the line he draws as the boundary for his happiness.

-Whatever your destination you will be followed by your failings.

-If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

***Expectation of death

-With the realization that each moment could be last, we’ll stop wasting our life on trivial things, and instead, focus on what is truly valuable: liberating our spirit from its state of self-imposed slavery, and cultivating a self-sufficient character that is fortified against the blows of fate.（自由、自足！）