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August 28th

THE OPULENT STOIC

“The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life,

provided that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything

needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury

requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties. Let us use

this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.”

—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 119.15b

ven in his own time, Seneca was criticized for preaching Stoic virtues
while accumulating one of the largest fortunes in Rome. Seneca was so
rich that some historians speculate that major loans he made to the
inhabitants of what is now Britain caused what became a horrifically brutal
uprising there. His critics’ derisive nickname for him was “The Opulent
Stoic.”
Seneca’s response to this criticism is pretty simple: he might have
wealth, but he didn’t need it. He wasn’t dependent on it or addicted to it.
Nor, despite his large bank account, was he considered to be anything close
to Rome’s most lavish spenders and pleasure hunters. Whether his
rationalization was true or not (or whether he was a tad hypocritical), his is
a decent prescription for navigating today’s materialistic and wealth-driven
society.
This is the pragmatic instead of the moralistic approach to wealth.
We can still live well without becoming slaves to luxury. And we don’t
need to make decisions that force us to continue to work and work and
work and drift further from study and contemplation in order to get more
money to pay for the things we don’t need. There is no rule that says
financial success must mean that you live beyond your means. Remember:
humans can be happy with very little.