Simple Stoic Advice
Duty
Duty
The beautiful thing about Stoic philosophy is the advice contained within it is just as applicable today as it was when it was first written all those many years ago. We can learn a great deal from interpreting the advice provided and using it to our advantage as we go throughout our own lives.
Today’s quote comes to us courtesy of Seneca’s On Anger, from the recent translation by James Romm and Princeton University Press entitled How to Keep Your Cool:
Quote
“The good man will carry out his duties, without fear or turmoil; he’ll act in a manner worthy of a good man, such that he’ll do nothing unworthy of a man.”
Advice
We all have a duty in life. Our job is to live according to our nature. That means we must live as an individual in society while simultaneously trying to live a life built on maximizing our own potential.
Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself:
“To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice — it degrades you.”
We’re all connected as society. If we are to harm one, we harm all. Eudaimonia was the Greek word meaning human flourishment. It is through virtue that we approach eudaimonia. But we cannot do it alone as if we were to cut ourselves off from society, we would be of no use to society as a whole thus not maximizing our ability to be virtuous.
Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is, we are an imperfect piece of art, constantly in the making, constantly being revised, moving toward perfection.
We must therefore live a morally virtuous life, one that encompasses our place within our own lives as well as that in society.
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