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Did Rome’s Richest Man Live Up to His Philosophy?

The Death of Seneca
According to Tacitus, Seneca modelled his death on that of Socrates, discussing philosophy with his friends.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Few philosophers have lived a life as dramatic or conflicted as Seneca’s. The emperor Nero made him the richest man in the Roman Empire before ordering him to commit suicide.

Today, Seneca is our most important primary source on ancient Stoicism, followed by Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, and Marcus Aurelius.

Stoicism has exerted a profound influence on the history of ideas, shaping the thought of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Adam Smith, and J. S. Mill. In mental health, it inspired what has become the world’s most widely practised form of psychotherapy: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

The Teacher’s Pet

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was probably born in 4 BCE, the same year as Jesus, in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), Hispania.

His father, Seneca the Elder (Lucius Annaeus Seneca Maior), was a Roman equestrian who wrote books on rhetoric and Roman history. His elder brother Novatus, better known as Gallio, became a senator, and his younger brother Mela was the father of the poet Lucan.

Seneca was raised in Rome. His tutors included Attalus the Stoic, Sotion, and Papirius Fabianus. He so admired Attalus that he ‘practically laid siege to his classroom’. He was ‘the first to arrive and the last to leave’ and often left with the desire to be poor.

He suffered from poor health—possibly tuberculosis on a background of asthma—and, from his mid-twenties, spent several years convalescing in Alexandria, where he lived with his mother’s sister and her husband, Gaius Galerius, the governor of Egypt.

The three sailed back to Rome in 32, but Galerius perished in a shipwreck.

These early experiences of illness and uncertainty may help to explain Seneca’s lifelong preoccupation with adversity, mortality, and the best use of life.

Exile on Corsica

A few years after his return, Seneca was elected quaestor, making him a senator.

According to the historian Cassius Dio (d. c. 235 CE), Seneca, ‘who was superior in wisdom to all the Romans of his day and to many others as well,’ spoke so eloquently in the Senate that the emperor Caligula ordered his execution, only to stay the order after being told that he was in any case terminally ill.

In 41, the throne passed to Caligula’s uncle Claudius, and the new empress Messalina, seeking to eliminate a potential rival, accused Caligula’s sister Julia Livilla of adultery with Seneca. The Senate sentenced Seneca to death, but Claudius commuted the sentence to exile on Corsica.

On Corsica, Seneca wrote the Consolation to Polybius, a letter purporting to comfort Polybius, Claudius’ literary secretary, on the death of his brother, but more likely intended to flatter the emperor in the hope of being recalled from exile.

Tutor and Adviser to Nero

In 49, following the downfall of Messalina, Agrippina the Younger, a sister of Caligula and Julia Livilla, married her uncle Claudius, and had Seneca recalled to tutor her twelve-year-old son, Nero.

When the lad acceded to the throne in 54, Seneca became his adviser and, alongside the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided good government during the first five, relatively benign, years of his reign, the so-called quinquennium Neronis.

In 58, the senator Publius Suilius Rufus, who had been close to Claudius, began attacking Seneca with a series of accusations centred upon his rapid rise to fabulous wealth. ‘By what kind of wisdom or maxims of philosophy,’ he inveighed, ‘has Seneca within four years of royal favour amassed three hundred million sesterces?’ In response, Seneca prosecuted Suilius, who was banished to the Balearic Islands.

The charge has echoed down the centuries. How could a Stoic philosopher preach simplicity while becoming the richest man in Rome?

In 59, Nero had Agrippina murdered, and Seneca wrote the self-exculpatory speech that he delivered to the Senate, a speech so artful that the senators moved to congratulate the emperor upon his own mother’s murder.

Downfall and Suicide

But now the tide would turn against our man.

After the death of Burrus in 62, Seneca lost whatever remained of his restraining influence over Nero. Having read the runes, he twice petitioned to retire, once in 62 and again in 64, but Nero refused to cut him loose. Still, he contrived to spend almost all his time on his country estates, working, among others, on his Letters to Lucilius.

His prolonged absences from court may have stoked Nero’s suspicions. When, in 65, the Pisonian conspiracy to overthrow Nero came to light, the emperor condemned a first wave of nineteen people to death, among them Seneca and his nephew Lucan.

By the end of the year, Seneca, his two brothers, and the twenty-five-year-old Lucan had all four been made to commit suicide.

According to the historian Tacitus (d. 120 CE), Seneca modelled his death on that of Socrates, discussing philosophy with his friends and chiding them for their outbursts of emotion.

He slit one vein, and then another, and then a few more, but would not bleed enough to die. Now in considerable pain, he took some hemlock, but this too failed to do the deed. At last, to dilate his veins and ease the pain, he immersed himself in a hot bath and finally suffocated to death.

His wife Pompeia Paulina, whom he had married in later life, attempted to share his fate, but Nero ordered that she be rescued and bandaged up.

Legacy

Seneca had seen the writing on the wall, which is why he worked so assiduously in his final years, seeking, through the Letters, to make himself as immortal as any mortal can be.

Even his carefully staged suicide may have been a part of that immortality project. Tacitus hints as much when, having related Seneca’s last words to his friends, he writes, ‘After these and some similar remarks, which might have been meant for a wider audience…’

Upon his death, Seneca’s works were instantly popular and, according to Quintilian, were ‘in the hands of every young man’. Seneca has been read by most everyone since, including the ‘French Seneca’, Michel de Montaigne, who modelled his Essays upon the Letters.

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Delve deeper into the life and times of Seneca in Stoic Stories, an overview of Stoicism through its best stories.

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The Slave Who Inspired an Emperor

Epictetus the slave and Marcus Aurelius the emperor
Epictetus inspired not one but two of Rome’s greatest emperors: Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

A biography of the Roman slave who rose into one of the leading Stoic philosophers, inspired an emperor, and shaped modern psychotherapy.

Stoic philosophy has exerted a profound influence on the history of ideas, inspiring thinkers as diverse as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Adam Smith, and J. S. Mill.

Its influence extends far beyond philosophy. In the field of mental health, Stoicism inspired what has become the most widely practised form of talking treatment, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Aaron Beck (d. 2021), the father of CBT, wrote that ‘the philosophical origins of cognitive therapy can be traced back to the Stoic philosophers.’

Epictetus, together with Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Musonius Rufus, is one of our principal sources on Stoicism. But whereas Marcus Aurelius ruled the greatest empire on earth, and Seneca rose into the wealthiest man in that empire, Epictetus began as a slave.

Yet his teachings came to shape an emperor, influence Christian and Islamic thought, inspire the founders of modern psychotherapy, and guide millions in the face of hardship and adversity.

So, how did a mere slave achieve all this?

Life as a Slave

Epictetus (c. 50–c. 135 CE) was born into slavery at Hierapolis, in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). His name, in Greek, means something like ‘Acquired One’.

He spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero. In 68, Epaphroditus assisted Nero in committing suicide (since Nero could not bring himself to plunge the dagger), with the deluded emperor lamenting, Qualis artifex pereo [‘What an artist dies in me!’].

In those early years, Epictetus, though a slave, discovered philosophy, and even managed to study under the charismatic Stoic Musonius Rufus. Musonius taught that philosophy is not merely something to be discussed but something to be lived—a lesson that Epictetus never forgot.

It is also around this time that he developed a disability, which may have owed to rheumatoid arthritis, although the Christian theologian Origen claims that it was his master who injured him.

One day, according to a famous anecdote, Epaphroditus lost his temper and grabbed Epictetus by the leg. He twisted it so forcefully that Epictetus warned him that it would break. When it snapped, Epictetus did not wince or cry, but calmly said, ‘Did I not tell you that it would break?’

Some time after Nero’s death, by virtue of his education or the dignity which it conferred upon him, Epictetus gained his civil freedom, having already acquired the far greater freedom of the mind.

Now a freedman, he taught philosophy in Rome.

Exile and the School at Nicopolis

When, in 94, Domitian banished all philosophers from the capital, Epictetus settled in Nicopolis, in Epirus, Greece, where he established a school and remained for the rest of his life.

Students travelled from across the Roman Empire to hear him speak. Among them was the young Arrian of Nicomedia, whose notes would preserve Epictetus’ teachings for posterity.

Like Musonius, Epictetus concentrated on ethics, arguing that physics and logic—the other two branches of ancient philosophy—ought to be in the service of practical action:

What do I care if matter is made up of atoms, indivisibles, or fire and earth? Isn’t it enough to know the nature of good and evil, the limits of desire and aversion, and of choice and refusal…?

The purpose of philosophy, he argued, is not to speculate about the stars but to learn how to live, ‘to practise how to remove from one’s life sighs and sorrow, grief and disappointment, and cries of “Alas!” and “Poor me!”’ This is largely a matter of according our will to the world, ‘so that nothing happens contrary to our wishes, and, conversely, nothing fails to happen that we want to happen.’

Hadrian, the future emperor, held Epictetus in the highest regard, and visited him, a former slave, in Nicopolis.

Epictetus’ Lamp

Epictetus did not marry or have children, despite urging these things upon others.

When he rebuked his friend and student Demonax for not marrying, Demonax sarcastically replied, ‘Very well, then, will you give me one of your daughters for a wife?’

However, in his retirement, Epictetus did, out of necessity, adopt the infant child of a friend, and raised him with the help of a woman.

His own needs remained remarkably modest. One day, the iron lamp by which he wrote was stolen. Reasoning that one can lose only what one has, he replaced it with a lamp of clay—which, after his death, was purchased at a great price by an admirer with no sense of irony.

The Discourses and Encheiridion

Epictetus wrote nothing himself. His teachings were recorded as the Discourses (or Diatribai) by his pupil Arrian of Nicomedia, also known for his account of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, written in a very different style.

In a prefatory note, Arrian writes: ‘Whatever I used to hear him say I wrote down, word for word, as best I could…’

He also claims that the Discourses ‘have somehow, without my knowledge or intention, fallen into the public’s hands.’

Such, in any case, is the public story. It is possible that Epictetus wrote the rather polished Discourses himself, with Arrian’s claimed authorship serving as a literary device to create an impression of spontaneity.

Whatever their precise origin, the Discourses remain unique in ancient philosophy. Rather than polished treatises, they preserve the atmosphere of a living classroom, with Epictetus questioning, teasing, rebuking… and constantly bringing philosophy back to the business of living.

Of the original eight books, only four have come down to us, and we also have the more portable Encheiridion, which is a digest of the Discourses—the word encheiridion [Greek, en+ kheir, literally, ‘in hand’]meaning something like ‘to have at hand’, originally with reference to a dagger or knife.

From Emperors to Modern Psychology

According to Origen, by the third century Epictetus’ renown exceeded that of Plato:

Plato is only found in the hands of those reputed to be philologists. By contrast, Epictetus is admired by ordinary people who have the desire to be benefited and who perceive improvement from his writings.

His influence spread far beyond the pagan world. In the ninth century, al-Kindi, the ‘Father of Arab Philosophy’, wrote a Device for Dispelling Sorrows which appears to have been influenced by Stoicism—for instance, in the contention that sorrow arises from thwarted desire, or that it is more a matter of convention than of nature.

In a striking analogy, which also features in the Encheiridion, al-Kindi compares life to a landfall during a much longer sea voyage back to our homeland, and warns us, as Epictetus did, not to get so caught up by the fruits and flowers as to forget about the ship.

Epictetus also left a lasting mark on modern psychology. In the first major work on rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT), the forerunner of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), Albert Ellis (d. 2007) framed his project with a line from the Encheiridion: ‘Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.’

The US fighter pilot James Stockdale (d. 2005) credited Epictetus with helping him survive more than seven years of imprisonment and torture in Vietnam, including four years in solitary confinement in a 3′ by 9′ concrete, windowless cell.

When his A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over North Vietnam, Stockdale remembered thinking to himself as he parachuted towards the jungle: ‘I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus!’

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What If You Had to Live Your Life Again?

Sisyphus, by Titian.
Sisyphus, by Titian (c. 1548–1549). Like Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return, the myth of Sisyphus challenges us to embrace a life that endlessly repeats itself.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

What if you had to live your life again, exactly as before? Nietzsche’s eternal return is the ultimate test for measuring a life well lived.

Imagine this. Tonight a daemon appears at your bedside.

The daemon tells you that every moment of your life—every joy, every disappointment, every triumph, every humiliation, every love, every regret—must be lived again, exactly as it has been, over and over, for all eternity.

Would you despair?

Or would you rejoice?

Most people associate this thought experiment with Nietzsche. It is, in fact, much older. Long before Nietzsche, the Stoics imagined a universe in which everything returns.

Under the influence of Plato, who was himself influenced by Pythagoras, who was himself influenced by India, the Stoics held that the universe undergoes cycles, being periodically destroyed in a great conflagration (ekpyrosis, ‘blow-out’) and then reborn, ad infinitum.

Because God, being perfectly rational, is bound to make the same choices, each cosmic cycle unfolds as the last. Thus, the world as we know it, with us in it, existed before and will exist again. In around 200 CE, the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias wrote, ‘[Chrysippus and the Stoics] hold that after the conflagration all the same things come to be again in the world numerically, so that even the same qualified individual as before exists and comes to be again in the world…’

Maybe, in ten trillion years, I will once again be sitting at this desk, writing these words, with the same cat asleep on my lap.

The Roman Stoic Seneca hints at the same idea when, in his famous Letters, he writes to Lucilius:

Things that vanish from our sight are merely stored away in the natural world: they cease to be, but they do not perish… the day will come again that will return us to the light. It is a day that many would refuse, except that we forget everything before returning.

Whether the Stoics thought of eternal return as literal cosmology or as a philosophical exercise scarcely matters. Its enduring power lies in the challenge that it poses.

Nietzsche’s Challenge to Us

In July 1881, Nietzsche discovered his arcadia in Sils-Maria, a place of ‘splendid isolation’. For one Swiss franc a day, he took an upstairs room in the house of Gian Durisch, the mayor of the village. The following month, along the shores of Lake Silvaplana, he stopped before a mighty pyramidal block of stone, where he had the ‘abysmal thought’ of eternal return (or eternal recurrence).

In The Gay Science (1882), he adapted this flash of inspiration into one of philosophy’s greatest personal challenges. In Aphorism 341, he asks how you would feel if a demon crept into your loneliest loneliness and informed you that you would have to live your life exactly as it is, has been, and will be, over and over again. ‘Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him: “You are a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!”’

For Nietzsche, how we respond to the demon is the acid test of life-affirmation. 

In Ecce Homo (1888), he says, ‘My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati [love of fate]: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it … but love it.’

Whereas the Stoics asked us to accept our fate, Nietzsche challenged us to love it.

For it is not enough merely to endure. Instead, we must embrace every joy and every sorrow so completely as to be willing to relive them for evermore.

Even Nietzsche himself struggled to meet the standard he had set himself: ‘I confess that the deepest objection to the Eternal Recurrence… is always my mother and my sister.’ After Nietzsche’s mental collapse, his sister Elisabeth deleted the remark from Ecce Homo.

Sisyphus

Albert Camus, who kept a photograph of Nietzsche in his office, took the idea one step further.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, he compares the human condition to the plight of Sisyphus, the mythical king of Ephyra who was punished for daring to defy the gods by being made to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll back down again. 

Yet Camus reaches one of the most startling conclusions in all philosophy: 

‘The struggle to the top is itself enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’

Even in a state of utter hopelessness, Sisyphus can still be happy. Indeed, he is happy precisely because he is in a state of utter hopelessness, because in recognising and accepting the hopelessness of his condition, and embracing it, he at the same time transcends it.

Or, in those wonderful words of Virgil,

Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.

The only hope for the doomed is no hope at all.

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This essay draws on themes explored at greater length in Stoic Stories, my overview of Stoic philosophy, and The German Greeks, my history of German philosophy.

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The Stoic Seneca on Anger

A study of anger, after Lebrun.
Ira furor brevis est.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 17 August 2026.

After his brother Novatus asked him ‘how anger may be soothed’, the Stoic philosopher Seneca penned his famous treatise, On Anger (c. 45 CE).

Anger, says Seneca, is a bad habit that people tend to pick up from their parents. When a child who was raised at Plato’s house was returned to his parents and witnessed his father shouting, he said, ‘I never saw this at Plato’s house.’

Anger is like a virus. If we are around angry people, it is hard not to lose our temper, however temperate we may normally be. For this reason alone, we ought to prefer the company of mild, level-headed people. For my urban readers, even wild animals become gentle in the company of the calm (though I wouldn’t rely on it).

Anger Is a Loss of Perspective

We should also resist our egocentric tendency to believe the worst about others. Often, the people at whom we are most liable to get angry are those who are in fact trying to help us—although, of course, not as much as we would like. In their minds, they are only trying to do what they think is best for them, and we, by our anger, are trying to thwart them—which is why they tend to return our anger. If what they are doing is not in their best interests, then we should calmly explain this to them, rather than losing our temper and, with it, their ear.

As for the things that anger us, they are often mere slights or annoyances that do not do us any real harm. Luxury debilitates the mind and undermines our sense of perspective, so that pampered people (like us) are more prone to anger over trivial things.

Events are events. It is we who attach emotion to them. And it is far easier to adjust our expectation of the world than to change the world itself.

Anger Does Us More Harm than Good

Even if someone murders our father or child, anger is not required to honour their memory, obtain justice, and, more generally, do the right and honourable thing. Recognising an injustice and becoming angry about it need not be one and the same thing—and, in fact, superadded anger may impair our ability to address the injustice. Many people think that anger is a show of virtue or, at least, a spur to virtue; at most, it can substitute for virtue in those who are lacking it.

Anger and grief only add to our existing pain, and often do more harm than the things out of which they arise. It is out of anger that Alexander the Great killed the friend who had saved his life—that great conqueror of kings, himself brought down by anger. And it is also out of anger that Medea slaughtered her innocent children. Will you suffer a stroke or die from a heart attack because someone said something out of place?

In Norse myth, Angrboða—the mother of Fenrir, Jörmungandr, and Hel—means ‘she who brings grief’. The same angr, meaning grief or distress, gave us our word anger. The name preserves a psychological truth: beneath anger there is often grief—and grief indulged may give birth to monsters.

As Horace put it, anger is a short-lived madness (ira furor brevis est). Whereas other vices bend the mind, anger overthrows it. The angry person is like a collapsing building that destroys itself in the very act of bearing down upon others.

Anger Is Contrary to Our Nature

Being social animals, like ants, bees, and wolves, human beings are born to provide and receive assistance. Anger, which, on the contrary, seeks to arrogate and annihilate, is so inimical to our nature that some angry people have benefited simply from looking in a mirror. 

Those who are unwilling to check their anger and work with others for the common good are like wasps in a beehive, gorging on the honey of others without contributing any of their own.

For all these reasons, we should never get angry. We might feel the beginnings of anger, but then reject this passionate impression that threatens to overthrow our reason and the tranquillity and dignity that follows in its train. We may not be able to prevent the first flash of irritation, any more than we can prevent ourselves from flinching at a sudden noise. Our freedom begins with what we do next, as we recognise anger for what it is: irrational and, often, unfair.

Now Here’s Your Answer

To regain perspective when angry, to reclaim our sanity, we might ask ourselves:

  • Am I expecting too much out of the world?
  • How is getting angry going to help me?
  • Who will remember this in a day or in a year, or in a hundred years?

But the surest cure for anger is delay, because it gives us a much better chance of rejecting our passionate impression.

Before rising into the first emperor of Rome, Augustus—then Octavian—was taught by the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus Cananites at Apollonia, in modern-day Albania, where he received the news of Julius Caesar’s demise. Athenodorus followed Octavian back to Rome and remained by his side as he deftly achieved that which his great uncle Caesar could or did not. When, on account of his old age, Athenodorus begged to be dismissed and was at last taking leave of Augustus, he reminded him, ‘Whenever you get angry, Caesar, do not say or do anything before repeating to yourself the twenty-four letters of the alphabet.’

At this, the emperor seized Athenodorus by the hand and said, ‘I still have need of your presence here.’

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Neel Burton is author of Stoic Stories: Stoicism by Its Best Stories. Through the lives of Zeno, Cleanthes, Cato, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and many others, Stoic Stories introduces the philosophy not through abstract theory, but through the memorable stories that have kept it alive for more than two thousand years.

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Three ancient mind exercises for processing and subliming bad news.

Imagine: Your house has been burgled. You’ve been fired. Your partner cheated or walked out on you. You’ve been diagnosed with a life-changing condition…

Bad news can leave us in a state of dread and despair. It seems like our whole world is falling apart, almost as if we’re being driven into the ground. We fear the very worst and cannot get it out of our mind, or gut. Often, there are other emotions mangled in, like anger, guilt, despair, betrayal, and love.

Bad news: we’ve all had it, and the worst is yet to come.

So, how best to cope?

I’m going to give you three cognitive strategies, or mind exercises, that I picked up from the Stoic philosophers—who, in the second century, could count the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, among their followers.

All three strategies aim, in one way or another, at generating perspective. While reading, hold a recent piece of bad news in the front of your mind, and consider how the strategies might or might not apply to your bad news.

Contextualization

Try to frame the bad news, to put it into its proper context. Think about all the good things in your life, including those that have been and those that are yet to come. Remind yourself of all the strengths and resources—the friends, facilities, and faculties—that you can draw upon in your time of need. Imagine how things could be much, much worse—and how for some people they actually are. Your house may have been burgled. Yes, you lost some valuables and it’s all such a huge hassle. But you still have your health, your job, your partner… Bad things are bound to hit us now and then, and it can only be a matter of time before they hit us again. In many cases, they are just the flip side of the good things that we enjoy. You got burgled, because you had a house and valuables. You lost a great relationship, because you had one in the first place. In that much, many a bad thing is no more than the removal or reversal of a good one.

Negative visualization

Now focus on the bad news itself. What’s the worst that could happen, and is that really all that bad? Now that you’ve got the worst out of the way, what’s the best possible outcome? And what’s the most likely outcome? Imagine that someone is threatening to sue you. The worst possible outcome is that you lose the case and suffer all the entailing cost, stress, and emotional and reputational hurt. Though it’s unlikely, you might even do time in prison (it has happened to some, and a few, like Bertrand Russell, did rather well out of it). But the most likely outcome is that you reach some sort of out-of-court settlement. And the best possible outcome is that you win the case, or better still, it gets dropped.

Transformation

Finally, try to transform your bad news into something positive, or into something that has positive aspects. Your bad news may represent a learning or strengthening experience, or act as a wake-up call, or force you to reassess your priorities. At the very least, it offers a window into the human condition and an opportunity to exercise dignity and self-control. Maybe you lost your job: time for a holiday and a promotion, or a career change, or the freedom and fulfilment of self-employment. Maybe your partner cheated on you. Even so, you feel sure that he or she still loves you, that there is still something there. Perhaps you can even bring yourself to look at it from his or her perspective. Yes, of course it’s painful, but it may also be an opportunity to forgive, to build a closer intimacy, to re-launch your relationship—or to go out and find a more fulfilling one. You’ve been diagnosed with a serious medical condition. Though it’s terrible news, it’s also the chance to get the support and treatment that you need, to take control, to fight back, to look at life and your relationships from another, richer perspective.

A Taoist story for the road

There’s a Taoist story about an old farmer whose only horse ran away. “Such terrible news!” said a neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer. The next day, the horse returned with six wild horses. “Such wonderful news!” exclaimed the neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer. The day after that, the farmer’s son tried to tame one of the wild horses but got thrown off and broke a leg. “Such terrible news!” cried the neighbour. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer, biting into a peach. A week later, war broke out: thanks to his broken leg, the farmer’s son managed to escape military conscription. “It all worked out really well in the end,” said the neighbour, “such great luck!”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied the farmer, rolling his eyes.

Neel Burton is author of Growing from Depression, which is currently free to download from his website bookstore.