Gratitude. Seneca, Epistles 1.9.20-22

Seneca concludes his epistle with the observation that happiness requires the ability to see yourself happy right now, wherever you are. If you cannot see how beatitude reaches you now, you will not see it in other circumstances, either. <Latin>.

Ne existimes nos solos generosa verba iactare, et ipse Stilbonis obiurgator Epicurus similem illi vocem emisit, quam tu boni consule, etiam si hunc diem iam expunxi. Si cui inquit sua non videntur amplissima, licet totius mundi dominus sit, tamen miser est. Vel si hoc modo tibi melius enuntiari videtur—id enim agendum est ut non verbis serviamus sed sensibus—, miser est qui se non beatissimum iudicat, licet imperet mundo. Ut scias autem hos sensus esse communes, natura scilicet dictante, apud poetam comicum invenies:

            non est beatus, esse se qui non putat.

Quid enim refert qualis status tuus sit, si tibi videtur malus? Quid ergo? inquis si beatum se dixerit ille turpiter dives et ille multorum dominus sed plurium servus, beatus sua sententia fiet? Non quid dicat sed quid sentiat refert, nec quid uno die sentiat, sed quid assidue. Non est autem quod verearis ne ad indignum res tanta perveniat: nisi sapienti sua non placent; omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui. Vale.

Lest you think Stilbon or me unique in the ability to utter noble words, his opponent Epicurus once produced a saying very close to the one just quoted. Take it now as a worthy reward, though I have already discharged my debt to date: “If anyone judge his possessions less than excessive, he will be miserable, though he be lord of the entire world.” Perhaps it will strike you better in this form—we must bend our expression to the sense rather than the words: “Wretched the man who cannot say he is the happiest man he knows, though he command the world.” In order that you may appreciate the common sense of these expressions, evidence of Nature's dictation, you should also look at this line from a comic poet:

  
           Unhappy the man who knows not that he exists.

What does the actual quality of your status matter, if it seems evil to you? “What then?” you say. “Shall a rich criminal, or some lord of many and servant to even more, become happy on the strength of nothing but his own opinion?” What matters is not what he opines, but what he feels, and not what he feels in a single day, but constantly. There is nothing in his condition for you to worship, nor does it present an incitement to anything unworthy. Unless he is wise, he dislikes his situation. Every sort of stupidity works diligently for its own annoyance. Farewell.