970. Practical duties

We ought first to examine our own selves, next the business which we propose to transact, next those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We ought therefore, to expand or contract ourselves according as the state of things presents itself to us, or as Fortune offers us opportunities. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

The services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca explains that there are many ways to help improve the human cosmopolis: one can be a candidate for public office, a defense lawyer, or a teacher. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus encouraged involvement in politics, but where themselves teachers. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

How long are we to go on doing the same thing? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Hence men undertake aimless wanderings and travel along distant shores, trying to soothe that fickleness of disposition which always is dissatisfied with the present. As Lucretius says: “Thus every mortal from himself does flee.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, nay, the greatest thing of all, and one which raises a man almost to the level of a god. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

I will obey the maxims of our school and plunge into public life, not because the purple robe attracts me, but in order that I may be able to be of use to my friends, my relatives, to all my countrymen, and indeed to all mankind. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca explains that he prefers simple cloths and easily prepared food, not the kind that "goes out of the body by the same path by which it came in." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support