Tough love. Seneca, Epistles 3.27.1-4

Seneca counsels himself, and Lucilius, to relinquish vice and embrace virtue before death.

Tu me inquis mones? iam enim te ipse monuisti, iam correxisti? ideo aliorum emendationi vacas? Non sum tam improbus ut curationes aeger obeam, sed, tamquam in eodem valetudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo colloquor et remedia communico. Sic itaque me audi, tamquam mecum loquar; in secretum te meum admitto et te adhibito mecum exigo.

Clamo mihi ipse, numera annos tuos, et pudebit eadem velle quae volueras puer, eadem parare. Hoc denique tibi circa mortis diem praesta: moriantur ante te vitia. Dimitte istas voluptates turbidas, magno luendas: non venturae tantum sed praeteritae nocent. Quemadmodum scelera etiam si non sunt deprehensa cum fierent, sollicitudo non cum ipsis abit, ita improbarum voluptatum etiam post ipsas paenitentia est. Non sunt solidae, non sunt fideles; etiam si non nocent, fugiunt. Aliquod potius bonum mansurum circumspice; nullum autem est nisi quod animus ex se sibi invenit. Sola virtus praestat gaudium perpetuum, securum; etiam si quid obstat, nubium modo intervenit, quae infra feruntur nec umquam diem vincunt. Quando ad hoc gaudium pervenire continget? non quidem cessatur adhuc, sed festinetur. Multum restat operis, in quod ipse necesse est vigiliam, ipse laborem tuum impendas, si effici cupis; delegationem res ista non recipit.

“You have the gall to chide me?” you say. “You've already finished warning yourself, fixing all your own problems? So you have time to correct others?” I'm not actually such a boor as to attempt curing others while I remain sick myself. Instead, as I languish here in the same hospital with you, I open a conversation about our shared illness, offering remedies that have served me. Hear my admonition as if I delivered it to myself, for I am admitting you into my secrets, and when your interest beckons I shall banish my own.

You find me shouting at myself. “Count your years, old man, and you'll be ashamed to want the same things you wanted as a kid, to keep endlessly piling the same shit. Do something excellent as you approach the day of your death: let your vices die before your body. Dismiss your disorderly pleasures, purchased and purged at great expense: they hurt on the way down, and when they're done, the pain remains. As we cannot help worrying about our crimes, even when these go undetected in the moment of their occurrence, so we cannot avoid the pangs of penitence that follow our depraved pleasures beyond their consummation. These pleasures aren't solid or faithful. Even if they do no harm, they are fleeting. Look around for something better, something that might endure. You'll find nothing apart from what your own mind discovers inside itself. Only virtue offers joy that remains safe and secure. Even when something impedes virtue's influence, she abides like the sun behind clouds, whose fleeting shadows are blown about without ever conquering the day.” When shall we attain this joy? Our quest for it is not one to pursue by delay, but with haste. It involves a good deal of work, in which you must necessarily engage your own attention and labor, if you want a successful outcome. This matter does not admit delegation: no go-betweens or substitutes.