🏛️ Sundays with Seneca
Sundays with Seneca is a weekly series exploring the writings (and Stoic philosophy) of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Each meditation delivers a contemporary interpretation of one of Seneca’s letters, accompanied by a reflection exercise. *** This series is exclusive to members.
Choose One Path for Your Life
Letter 20, On Practicing What You Preach
If you are in good health, and if you now judge yourself worthy of finally becoming your own master, I rejoice. I shall count it as my own success if I can pull you out of the waves in which you are being tossed without hope of escape.
But this, my dear Lucilius, I beg of you: let wisdom sink deep into your soul. Measure your progress not by what you say or write, but by the strength of your heart and the lessening of your desires.
Let your deeds prove your words.
The aim of those who chase applause, or who charm the ears of young men and idlers with clever arguments, is quite different. Philosophy teaches us how to live, not how to perform. It demands that each of us live by his own principles, that his life not contradict his words, and that his inner life be of one color, in harmony with his actions.
This, I say, is the highest duty and the best proof of wisdom: that word and deed agree, that a person is equal to himself under all conditions and always the same.
“You object: who can maintain this standard?” Very few, to be sure—but there are some. It is a hard task, and I do not claim that a philosopher always keeps the same pace. But he can always keep the same direction.
One Standard for Your Life
Watch yourself, then, and see whether your clothing and your house clash; whether you treat yourself lavishly and your family meanly; whether you eat frugal dinners but build luxurious houses. You should fix upon a single standard to live by and bring your whole life into line with it.
Some men are strict at home but strut proudly in public; this inconsistency is a fault. It betrays a wavering mind that has not yet found its balance.
This unsteadiness and disagreement between action and purpose spring from one cause: no one decides firmly what he wants. And if he does, he does not stick to it, but jumps the track. He not only changes his mind; he slips back into the very conduct he has already condemned.
So, leaving aside the old technical definitions and looking at life as a whole, I am content with this one: “What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always rejecting the same things.”
You need not add the small qualification “provided that what you desire is right,” because no one can always want the same thing unless that thing is right.
This is why people do not know what they want, except in the instant of wanting. No one decides once for all what to pursue or what to avoid. Their judgment shifts from day to day and swings to the opposite side, making many a life into a kind of game.
Press on, then, as you have begun. Perhaps you will reach perfection—or at least a point that only you know is still just short of it.
Loving What Is Yours
“But what,” you ask, “will become of my crowded household if there is no household income?” If you stop supporting that crowd, it will support itself. Or perhaps you will learn from the gift of poverty what you could not learn from your own giving.
Poverty will leave you your true and tested friends; it will strip away those who sought you not for yourself but for what you had. Should you not love poverty, if only for this—that it reveals who truly loves you? When will the time come when no one flatters you with lies?
Let your thoughts, your efforts, your desires all work to make you content with yourself and with the goods that arise from within you. Entrust all other prayers to God. What happiness could be more your own? Come down willingly to a humble station from which you cannot be thrown down. And to help you do this more gladly, the “gift” in this letter concerns that very subject.
Once again, though you may frown, Epicurus will help me pay what I owe:
“Believe me, your words will carry more weight if you sleep on a simple bed and wear rough clothes. Then you will not merely say them; you will prove them.”
I myself listen in a different spirit to our friend Demetrius after I have seen him lying there without a cloak to cover him and without any rug beneath him. He is not only a teacher of truth but a witness to it.
You may ask, “Can a person not despise wealth even while it lies in his hand?” Certainly he can. He, too, is noble-spirited who sees riches piled up around him and, after wondering that they have come to him at all, simply smiles and almost only hears that they are his. It is no small thing not to be spoiled by familiar contact with wealth. He is truly great who remains inwardly poor in the midst of riches.
“Yes,” you say, “but how will this man you praise bear poverty if it comes upon him suddenly?” I might answer Epicurus in turn: I also do not know whether the poor man he praises will despise riches if they suddenly fall to him. In both cases, we must examine the mind. We must ask whether your man is genuinely pleased with his poverty, and whether my man is genuinely untroubled by his wealth. Otherwise, a cot and rags are weak evidence of good intentions, unless it is clear that the person endures them not from necessity but from choice.
It is the mark of a noble spirit not to throw oneself headlong into hardship because it is supposedly better, but to practice such conditions so that, if they come, they are easy to bear. And they are easy to bear, Lucilius. After long rehearsal, they even become pleasant, for they bring a sense of freedom from care—and without that, nothing is pleasant.
I consider it essential, therefore, to do what I told you that great men have often done: set aside a few days in which we prepare ourselves for real poverty by living through imagined poverty. All the more reason to do this, since we have been steeped in luxury and regard every duty as heavy and burdensome.
Wake the soul from its sleep; prod it; remind it how little nature really asks of us. No one is born rich. Every person, on first seeing the light, is ordered to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning—and yet, later on, whole kingdoms are too small for us.
Farewell.
Reflection: One Standard, One Rehearsal
1. Find the Gap Between Words and Deeds
Ask yourself: Where am I saying one thing and living another?
Consider reviewing three areas of life:
Money—How you spend vs. what you claim to value.
Time—How you actually use your hours vs. what you say matters.
Status—How you present yourself vs. who you really are.
Choose one concrete mismatch you’re willing to work on this week.
2. Write Your Single Standard
In one short sentence, capture a norm you want to live by more honestly.
For example:
“My life and my words match.”
“I live simply so I can think clearly.”
“I don’t pretend to be richer or more important than I am.”
Put it where you’ll see it daily.
Let it quietly question your choices throughout the week.
3. Rehearse “Poverty” for a Few Days
For 1–3 days, choose a simple drill:
Eat very basic meals.
Wear the same plain outfit.
Skip all nonessential spending and digital “treats.”
At day’s end, note briefly: “What did I actually lose?” “What did I gain in clarity or freedom from care?”
Let this remind you: simplicity isn’t just something you praise in theory; it’s a condition you can step into—and perhaps even start to welcome.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well.
J.W.
P.S. If you found today’s meditation helpful, consider sharing it with a friend!
Thank you for this lovely reminder of what truly counts.