98: Fortune And Misfortune

     One of the concepts that comes up most frequently in Seneca's letters to his friend Lucilius is fortune. If one were to make a list of the letters in which the word "fortune" appears and a list of the letters in which it does not occur, I think the first list would be longer than the second. In Letter 98, for example, Seneca writes:
          "All the things that fortune favors become fruitful and pleasant only if those who possess them are also in possession of themselves and not in the power of their property. It is a mistake, Lucilius, to judge fortune responsible for anything that is good or bad for us. Fortune merely gives us the material for good and bad things -- the preliminaries for what will either turn out to be good or bad within us. For the mind is more powerful than every act of fortune: by itself the mind guides its affairs one way or the other, and is the cause of a happy or unhappy life for itself. A bad mind turns everything into bad, even things that have arrived looking excellent. A mind that is upright and sound corrects fortune's wrongs, softens its hardness and roughness with the knowledge of how to endure, receives prosperity with gratitude and moderation, and shows firmness and fortitude in face of adversity. You could be sensible, do everything with good judgment and never exceed your strength, but you will not achieve the good that is sound and beyond threat unless you are secure in dealing with what is insecure."
     In my own case, I have had a brush with misfortune recently (thankfully not a very serious brush, but a brush nonetheless). Regular readers of this blog may recall that I took early retirement last year, and that it was several months before I found another job. Eventually, I accepted a position as a contract attorney on a project that was supposed to last six months. However, after three months, myself and the other 20 or so other lawyers on the project were told -- with less than one day's warning -- that the job was ending early (we were not told why). Following Seneca's advice, I attempted to focus my mind on finding another position, and -- fortunately -- found a new project within about a week. Although this job is expected to last around a month, I hope the episode has taught me the importance of not dwelling upon what many would characterize as "bad luck" (the modern term for misfortune) but rather to be comfortable with insecurity.
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     Seneca, Letters on Ethics to Lucilius, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2015), Letter 98, 2-3, pages 386-387.