Making Mountains Look Like Clichés

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, in Letters from a Stoic, pp. 75-76:

A change of character, not a change of air, is what you need. Though you cross the boundless ocean, though, to use the words of our poet Virgil, “Lands and towns are left astern, whatever your destination you will be followed by your failings.” Here is what Socrates said to someone who was making the same complaint: “How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away.” How can novelty of surroundings abroad and becoming acquainted with foreign scenes or cities be of any help? All that dashing about turns out to be quite futile. And if you want to know why all this running away cannot help you, the answer is simply this: you are running away in your own company. You have to lay aside the load on your spirit. Until you do that, nowhere will satisfy you.

This passage stood out to me for a couple of reasons:

1. Supposing for a moment that its wording were more informal, is there any doubt that the above advice could have been written today? Indeed, a letter between friends¹ written 2000 years ago has shown us that life in ancient Rome seems eerily familiar to that of today; the same problems that exist today existed then.
2. The same problems that exist today existed then.

That last point is huge. For as much as it validates that our worries are indeed real, it also makes them smaller in a way: it demonstrates that everyone shares them regardless of time or place, a realization that can both empower us and serve to considerably deflate our anxieties. All of a sudden, things that used to seem like mountains look more like molehills.

This sort of personal growth is something typically reserved for post-mortem analysis after something hasn’t gone to plan. Take, for instance, your first job out of college. When you’re young and green, anyone with the slightest bit of experience can seem like a genius, and that can be downright imposing. Six months later, when you find yourself feeling more competent than 80% of your co-workers, you can’t help but look back and laugh, “I lost sleep over these people?” If only you’d had the wherewithal to consider that everyone feels the same way starting out, you might have channeled that energy into doing something far more productive than worrying.

Indeed, when you gain the ability to diffuse these situations before they happen, nothing makes you feel like more of a powerhouse adult. That’s a Big Move, to be sure, but let’s be real: it’s damn hard to do. First, you’ve got to apply the necessary amount of practice and discipline. You’ve got to keep failing until you don’t.

The real reason I cited that passage is because I happened to stumble across it at the exact moment that I needed to read it the most.

When I’m upset with myself for one reason or another but can’t quite put my finger on it, I’ve been known to do drastic things. Typically, this involves me buying myself a new gadget, but at times it’s taken on far less benign forms: I’ve broken up with past loves over this sort of thing; I’ve even moved apartments. I’ve both figuratively and literally run away from my problems, and my problems have followed me wherever I’ve gone. This is something that my friends have noticed, no doubt, but it’s something that I had not stopped to consider until very recently, when I was going through just such a rut.

The thing is, my problems, when I stop to actually consider them, seem pretty insignificant. And that just makes me feel like a jackass.

You might be wondering, then: “Hey Ryan, why are you offering advice when you yourself seem to suck so badly at life?”

That’s easy: You suck at life, too. Everyone does. As you get older, you start to realize that everyone is a failure in their own spectacular, wholly original sort of way. But I have great news: not only does this realization turn you into a more compassionate human being, Jesus Christ does it really take the edge off of things.

From Letters from a Stoic, p. 72:

“SO you’re giving me advice, are you?” you say. “Have you already given yourself advice, then? Have you already put yourself straight? Is that how you come to have time for reforming other people?” No, I’m not so shameless as to set about treating people when I’m sick myself. I’m talking to you as if I were lying in the same hospital ward, about the illness we’re both suffering from, and passing on some remedies.