We don't control outcomes. Seneca, Epistles 2.14.14-16

What can we do, if not politics? Seneca suggests that we cultivate life, specifically a private life that does not require public means to maintain itself and avoid giving others offense. Of course this path is fraught with risk and danger, as all are, but Seneca likes it better.

Sed postea videbimus an sapienti opera rei publicae danda sit: interim ad hos te Stoicos voco qui a re publica exclusi secesserunt ad colendam vitam et humano generi iura condenda sine ulla potentioris offensa. Non conturbabit sapiens publicos mores nec populum in se vitae novitate convertet. Quid ergo? utique erit tutus qui hoc propositum sequetur? Promittere tibi hoc non magis possum quam in homine temperanti bonam valetudinem, et tamen facit temperantia bonam valetudinem. Perit aliqua navis in portu: sed quid tu accidere in medio mari credis? Quanto huic periculum paratius foret multa agenti molientique, cui ne otium quidem tutum est? Pereunt aliquando innocentes—quis negat?—nocentes tamen saepius. Ars ei constat qui per ornamenta percussus est. Denique consilium rerum omnium sapiens, non exitum spectat; initia in potestate nostra sunt, de eventu fortuna iudicat, cui de me sententiam non do. At aliquid vexationis afferet, aliquid adversi. Non damnatur (‡) latro cum occidit.

But we will look later at the question of whether the work of government should be given to a wise man. In the meantime, I call your attention to those Stoics who, when they were excluded from public business, retired to cultivate life, and to create independent laws for humanity that avoid offending anyone too powerful (†). A wise man will not disturb public customs or draw the people toward himself by the novelty of his life. "What of it?" you ask. "Is following this precept enough to keep him safe?" I cannot promise you this, anymore than I can promise good health to someone temperate; but temperance does create good health, all the same. A ship sometimes sinks in port, but what do you think happens in the middle of the sea? How do you suppose a vessel unable to bear calm is going to handle danger, tossing and pitching every which way? Innocent passengers perish sometimes. I don't deny it. But the guilty perish even more often. Skill belongs to the man whom fortune strikes through his achievements, his tools and what he has wrought. In every undertaking, a wise man looks ultimately for counsel, not for escape. Beginnings lie in our power, but fortune decides outcomes, about which I refuse to offer any personal judgment. "But the outcome will bring us some trouble, some misfortune." What of it? A brigand is not condemned after he has perished.

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(‡) I follow the MSS here, shaking my head at the emendation proposed by Gronovius (damnat). Schweighäuser's dominatur makes better sense than that, but why fix what isn't broken?

(†) Not all Romans of birth or means were active in politics. The Stoics mentioned here might be part of the philosophical school of Quintus Sextius, which flourished between 50 BCE and 19 CE and advocated withdrawal from politics. Seneca calls Sextius a Stoic elsewhere in these letters to Lucilius (7.64.2), but also records that Sextius did not see himself that way.