Things Worse Than Dying
The Daily Stoic8 Okt 2018

Things Worse Than Dying

Death and dying are the worst parts of life, right? After all, they do end the whole thing.

So while it does make sense, generally, to try to avoid dying, Seneca marvelled at the terrible things people do to stay alive--things much worse than death. We’ll betray friends, he said, betray our most closely held beliefs, people will even sell out their own children and grandchildren--as the elderly often do in almost every election--just to keep things the way we like them.

How pathetic is this? And what a contradiction it is. Sure, you’re literally still alive, but you traded your soul to make it so. You might as well be in a coma on a ventilator.

Actually, according to Seneca, that would be better. Because the problem with the pathetic, unprincipled, selfish things we do to stay alive--stealing, hoarding, lying, and cheating--is that we then have to live with them. People do terrible things to live to see the sunrise the next day, he says, “a dawn that’s privy to their many sins.”

There are many worse things than death, many things that no amount of years are worth trading for. That is: Living with what we had to do to keep living, well, that can be worth than death.

We must always remember that. Life is not the scarce resource, living well is. Being a good person is. Doing the right thing is. That’s what important. Not how many years you pile up.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Avsnitt(2953)

The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us

The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us

Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of using the American Civil War as a metaphor, not just to explain the divisive political landscape, but the divide within each person. Just as there was a North and So...

14 Jan 20193min

This Is What Karma Looks Like

This Is What Karma Looks Like

There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and know the full bounty of...

11 Jan 20193min

The Great Equalizer

The Great Equalizer

The author Michael Malice has a running gag: whenever a celebrity dies he posts a meme that says RIP but is a photo of a similar looking but a very different (and very alive) celebrity. It’s partly a ...

10 Jan 20192min

If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit

If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit

There’s not much in Stoicism that’s particularly groundbreaking: Focus on what you can control. Be a good person. Manage your emotions. A lot of the famous Stoic quotes are pretty basic too: Epictetus...

9 Jan 20192min

Find A Point!

Find A Point!

Peter Barton’s beautiful memoir, Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, takes readers along a man’s search for meaning when he’s forced to confront mortality. Struggling for a reason to persist amid ...

8 Jan 20193min

The Habit You Must Start This Year

The Habit You Must Start This Year

Why does Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations speak to us so? The answer, ironically, is that because the author had zero intention of doing so—in fact, he probably would have been mortified to know how well...

7 Jan 20193min

The One Thing You Must Avoid

The One Thing You Must Avoid

Imagine this. You’ve worked for years on this novel—one that is indisputably the best thing you’ve ever done. You manage to get a publisher to buy it. You start to get rave reviews. You sell out your ...

4 Jan 20193min

Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters

Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tereza, as the Prague Spring happens and the Soviets begin a military occupation, takes the time to rescue a crow that was hurt on the side of the road. Yet when ...

3 Jan 20193min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
rss-svart-marknad
svd-tech-brief
rss-borsens-finest
badfluence
uppgang-och-fall
avanzapodden
bathina-en-podcast
fill-or-kill
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
24fragor
lastbilspodden
rss-dagen-med-di
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
tabberaset
rss-veckans-trade
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
borsmorgon