Simple Stoic Advice
Beware of Your Vices
Beware of Your Vices
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, from his essay, On the Shortness of Life:
Quote
“Vices surround and assail men from every side, and do not allow them to rise again and lift their eyes to discern the truth, but keep them overwhelmed and rooted in their desires. Never can they recover their true selves.”
Advice
In Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, he describes what Zeno categorized as vices. According to Diogenes, Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, describes vices in two categories:
“…some are primary, others subordinate: e.g. folly, cowardice, injustice, profligacy are accounted primary; but incontinence, stupidity, ill-advisedness subordinate.”
Diogenes goes on to say that the vices of the Stoics are mostly forms of ignorance, ignoring the virtues which correspond to the ultimate goal of wisdom.
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor (161–180), taking a more materialistic stance on vices, provides guidance and states:
“Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful. Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them — that it would upset you to lose them.”
Cicero himself, writing about the aging process, recommends that we not trouble ourselves with desires for:
“Nothing troubles you if you don’t desire it.”
Remember, Temperance is the virtue of balance, not having too much, not having too little. Be aware of vices, for they can hold you down and never let go.
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