Letters 123.1

Wearied with the discomfort rather than with the length of my journey, I have reached my Alban villa late at night, and I find nothing in readiness except myself. So I am getting rid of fatigue at my writing-table: I derive some good from this tardiness on the part of my cook and my baker. For I am communing with myself on this very topic—that nothing is heavy if one accepts it with a light heart, and that nothing need provoke one’s anger if one does not add to one’s pile of troubles by getting angry.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 123.1, translated by Richard Mott Gummere