Seneca’s misconceptions about mental strength

It’s useless to be strong in situations where strength plays no meaningful role. Will mental strength alone help you achieve your business, professional and social #goals? Will it render you healthier and happier? I very much doubt it. #Seneca viewed mental strength as the answer to all questions. How do we minimize trouble in life? How do we prevent a nervous breakdown and maintain our motivation after a setback? Through mental strength, he argued. The problem is that Seneca’s questions are severely biased. They assume, wrongly, that human life consists mostly of pain, misery and defeats. They forecast a dark future for everybody, everywhere, in every area of life. They only spread pessimism and resignation. In his 13th and 24th Letters to Lucilius, Seneca categorized coping with adversity as a central goal of his philosophy. He gives his readers advice on how to prepare themselves for bad times, and encourages them to practise daily in their heads, so that they will be ready when disaster strikes. To make things worse, Seneca calls for “mediating daily on the shortness of life,” so that we do not grow too enamoured of anyone or anything. He argues that, by preparing ourselves for the worst, we will suffer less when we experience a large loss. I consider Seneca’s low expectations as the root cause of his philosophical misconceptions: He vastly underrated the human capacity for #selfimprovement and for pursuing and achieving difficult goals. He placed a heavy emphasis on #meditation and moderation, and too little on #motivation and implementation. Seneca’s misconceptions about human psychology run too deep to be ignored. They permeate his complete writings from the first page to the last. They must be addressed and resolved before we can enjoy the benefits of #Stoicism. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/senecas-misconceptions-about-mental-strength/