Beware of happiness. Seneca, Epistles 1.8.1-4

Seneca's message for posterity, including us: it is not enough to beware of evils. We must also beware of goods. Everything good in life can be evil, under the right circumstances. Happiness itself can induce us to make bad decisions; it will almost certainly do so, in fact, if we are ever so fortunate as to find it. What then? Stay tuned. You can listen to the Latin <here>.

Tu me inquis vitare turbam iubes, secedere et conscientia esse contentum? ubi illa praecepta vestra quae imperant in actu mori? Quid? ego tibi videor inertiam suadere? In hoc me recondidi et fores clusi, ut prodesse pluribus possem. Nullus mihi per otium dies exit; partem noctium studiis vindico; non vaco somno sed succumbo, et oculos vigilia fatigatos cadentesque in opere detineo. Secessi non tantum ab hominibus sed a rebus, et in primis a meis rebus: posterorum negotium ago. Illis aliqua quae possint prodesse conscribo; salutares admonitiones, velut medicamentorum utilium compositiones, litteris mando, esse illas efficaces in meis ulceribus expertus, quae etiam si persanata non sunt, serpere desierunt. Rectum iter, quod sero cognovi et lassus errando, aliis monstro.

Clamo: vitate quaecumque vulgo placent, quae casus attribuit; ad omne fortuitum bonum suspiciosi pavidique subsistite: et fera et piscis spe aliqua oblectante decipitur. Munera ista fortunae putatis? insidiae sunt. Quisquis vestrum tutam agere vitam volet, quantum plurimum potest ista viscata beneficia devitet in quibus hoc quoque miserrimi fallimur: habere nos putamus, haeremus. In praecipitia cursus iste deducit; huius eminentis vitae exitus cadere est. Deinde ne resistere quidem licet, cum coepit transversos agere felicitas, aut saltim rectis aut semel ruere: non vertit fortuna sed cernulat et allidit.

  

“You're telling me to avoid the crowd?” you say. “To go off alone and make peace with my conscience? Where are your precepts that command us to die in action?” What now? Do you suppose that I am urging inaction? I have shut myself in here and closed the doors precisely so that I can be of use to more people. I never yet lost a day to leisure. Part of the night I claim for my studies. I don't go to bed: I collapse, dragging my eyes as they droop over my work, worn out with waking. I have retreated not so much from men as from things, most especially my own things. I am attending the business of posterity. To them I write things that may be of value. I send them healthy admonitions, by letter, the way I might send recipes for salves tested on my own wounds, which even if they are not healed have at least ceased to spread. To others I show the right road, which I found late and lame with wandering.

I shout out, “Shun whatever pleases crowds, the goods that accident brings! Meet every lucky break with suspicion, fearing its fair sheen. Fish and wild game are taken in when they meet with some sweet hope. You think these are the gifts of fortune? They are traps. Whoever among you wishes to live safe, let him flee these poisoned prizes as much as possible. I know them well, having fallen for them myself, wretch that I am. I thought I had something, but in truth I was had. Our friend in search of safety is already walking a perilous path—narrow, between sheer cliffs. The only way to escape from this eminent life is to fall. It is not even in his power to resist, when happiness begins to drive him sideways: he must go down, either by stages or all at once. Fortune does not turn aside: she meets you head-on, slamming and smashing.”