Fixing friends? Be careful. Seneca, Epistles 3.25.1-3

Seneca discusses how to approach mature friends in need of some serious help. Adults are hard to reform, as they have more experience and are more likely to persist in whatever habits they have developed than to cultivate new ones. But where there is will and opportunity for change, there is hope.

Quod ad duos amicos nostros pertinet, diversa via eundum est; alterius enim vitia emendanda, alterius frangenda sunt. Utar libertate tota: non amo illum nisi offendo. Quid ergo? inquis quadragenarium pupillum cogitas sub tutela tua continere? Respice aetatem eius iam duram et intractabilem: non potest reformari; tenera finguntur. An profecturus sim nescio: malo successum mihi quam fidem deesse. Nec desperaveris etiam diutinos aegros posse sanari, si contra intemperantiam steteris, si multa invitos et facere coegeris et pati. Ne de altero quidem satis fiduciae habeo, excepto eo quod adhuc peccare erubescit; nutriendus est hic pudor, qui quamdiu in animo eius duraverit, aliquis erit bonae spei locus. Cum hoc veterano parcius agendum puto, ne in desperationem sui veniat; nec ullum tempus aggrediendi fuit melius quam hoc, dum interquiescit, dum emendato similis est. Aliis haec intermissio eius imposuit, mihi verba non dat: exspecto cum magno faenore vitia reditura, quae nunc scio cessare, non deesse. Impendam huic rei dies et utrum possit aliquid agi an non possit experiar.

As far as our two friends are concerned, each must pursue a different path. The first must merely emend his vices; the latter must destroy his entirely. Let me be really frank: I don't love him truly if I neglect to offend him here. “What?” you say. “Do you think you can school an adult the way you would a child? Look how hard and set in his ways the last forty years have made him! He cannot be reformed, reshaped; you're telling yourself some flimsy stories here.” I don't know whether I will be successful, but I prefer to lack success rather than faith. Think of how physicians treat the chronically ill: if you have taken measures against intemperance, obliging your patients to act and suffer treatment against their will, still you won't have despaired of their being healed, though their illness endure long whiles. I have little confidence that our second friend will recover, but there is one good symptom: he still blushes whenever he makes a mistake. This sense of decency must be nurtured: if it can persist and grow strong in his mind, there will be room there for good hope. As he is already a veteran, hardened by life, I think we should take only minimal action to reform him, lest he come to despair of his condition. No better time for us to intervene than the present, when he is resting between sins and very like a man already reformed. The break he is taking merely presents an opportunity for others to engage; it doesn't put words in my mouth. I expect that his vices will return with great interest, as I know that they have merely ceased to appear, not to exist. I will spend a day on this matter and see for myself whether anything can be done, or not.