There is No Running from Your Problems
Seneca on one’s need to handle their affairs head on
Seneca on one’s need to handle their affairs head on
A gut reaction for many when times get tough is to run. This is not the fight or flight response I am talking about but rather the ability to step away from the life we’re living. When life gets harder or we go through a rough patch, we look for ways to escape. More often than not, we plan a trip and decide to run off to this other city, state, or country thinking it can release us from our problems, or, to put it bluntly, solve them.
And these actions have been going on for centuries.
Writing to his friend Lucilius sometime in the first century AD, Seneca the Younger would advise his protégé against these escapes. Lucilius, dealing with a work situation, wished to travel and leave his problems behind.
But as Seneca stated, “You must change the mind, not the venue.”
We often believe that massive changes will help bring that feeling to our lives that we are in search of — those answers we seek. Some situations warrant an escape, but others need nothing more than time for reflection, meditation, and a change in perspective about the underlying things happening.
“You must shed the load that is on your mind: until you do that, no place will be pleasing to you.”
What separates us from other species is our ability to use our mind, consciously, to solve problems. We are provided reason in order to use it. Yet we become emotionally embroiled in situations and allow those emotions to dictate our actions rather than using reason and wisdom. We must reset this dilemma so we can better advance our agenda with the use of knowledge.
“Where you go matters less than who you are when you go,” Seneca declared.
If we do not work on our outstanding issues, then upon our return from traveling, we will be met with the same predicament.
We’ve all been guilty of it. We’re burnt out or tired. We’re sick of responsibilities or our jobs. So we book a trip, have an amazing time, and we return, only to be hit in the face with the cold hard reality that our problems are there staring right back at us.
Reflecting nightly on our day, talking to a friend or individual who we can trust and look to for guidance, these are just a few of the ways for which we can better align with the problem at hand and begin to overcome it.
Seneca recommends interrogating ourselves daily, leaving no stone unturned.
“Bring an accusation against yourself, as stringently as you can. Then conduct the investigation. Take the role of the accuser first, then the judge, and let that of the advocate come last. Offend yourself sometimes!”
If we are determined to travel as a way of escape, making that travel be a form of reflection can accomplish two tasks at once. We not only escape the current situation and create distance for perspective shifting, we also are actively working to fix it. This could be going to a cabin for reflection or taking a trip to recompose ourselves with nature.
Our goal, according to Seneca, is to be able to declare ourselves as a citizen of the world:
“We should live with this conviction: “I was not born in any one spot; my homeland is this entire world.””
This way, we understand that travels are not meant to fix any problem, it can’t, it is our luggage that we carry with us. But, if we are able to handle this luggage, then the travel becomes reserved for the enjoyment we had wished for.
“Once what is amiss is gotten rid of, then every change of place will become pleasurable.”
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