Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger – 4 BC – AD 65) grew up in Rome at the same time that Jesus Christ was growing up in Israel. Following a banishment to Corsica by Roman Emporer Claudius, he was brought back to be Nero’s tutor in AD 49. He was able to advise Nero through the first five years of Nero’s reign and helped oversee a relatively stable government. But, all good things must come to an end, and a false accusation regarding his loyalty to Nero brought his life to an untimely end.
However, during Seneca’s time, he did a lot of learning, thinking, and writing. One of his letters has been translated and edited into a book* titled “On the Happy Life” in which Seneca (who had good reason to search for happiness) talked about the tools and strategies he employed for happiness in his own life.
In “On the Happy Life” Seneca identifies two enemies of happiness.
He says, “The happy man is one who is freed from fear and desire.”
The inference, of course, is that fear and desire are chains that bind us and lock us out of happiness.
So, what’s got you afraid and worried to the point that it’s putting chains on your happiness?
What do you desire so much that you’ve convinced yourself that you simply CAN’T be happy without it?
Here’s the problem.
Many of the things/circumstances you fear, you have no control over.
Many of the things you desire are beyond your current ability to purchase or achieve.
While Seneca mused over these things in Rome, over in Israel Jesus Christ said pretty much the same thing about the troublesome impact of fear and desire upon our happiness when He said,
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. …your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Jesus Christ – Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. …your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
In this case, Seneca has identified the problem (fear and desire), and Jesus Christ has identified the solution – trusting in God to care for both our fears and to give us what we need.
There is such thing as both healthy fear and healthy desire. But when either of these become chains that sink us in a pit of despair, they are no longer healthy but instead, they become tools of self-inflicted unhappiness — the two enemies of happiness.
Looking inward to discover unnecessary fears and desires will help us identify these two enemies of happiness in our lives. Looking upward to the Creator for protection from what we fear and provision of what we truly need will help us live lives of happy dependence upon Him.
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* I cannot recommend everything written in every book I mention in my blog. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and where a book is right or makes a good point, I will give credit where credit is due.
Until next time, have a happy day.