Seneca’s letters on motivation

In our century, motivation seminars have become a sizeable industry. Companies send their employees to those seminars in the hope of increasing sales, productivity and innovation, but it is hard to keep people motivated month after month, especially during periods of economic stagnation. Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) didn’t invent the motivation seminar, but he achieved the same effect by writing letters and essays. If a friend had lost a beloved family member, Seneca would give him advice about how to regain motivation. The same applies to letters that Seneca wrote to friends confronted with setbacks or illness. In the next paragraphs, I’m condensing Seneca’s best advice on motivation, pointing in each case to the original source. The examples I have selected, all drawn from Seneca’s works, help illustrate how to put Seneca’s recommendations into practice. The Letters to Lucilius provide advice that goes beyond the generalities contained in Seneca’s essays. For instance, in his essay “On the Happy Life,” he talks about living honestly and cultivating virtue, but barely addresses the issue of motivation. Seneca’s essay “The Constancy of the Wise” emphasises the virtue of equanimity more than any other. It provides extensive examples of individuals able to stay calm in times of adversity, but tells us little about their motivation. I am all for staying calm, living honestly, cultivating virtue, and practising all the other tenets of Stoicism, but I would have preferred to see Seneca address the issue of motivation. Why did he expect his readers to carry out his recommendations day after day? From where are they supposed to draw their long-term motivation? Seneca rarely mentions happiness as the driving element in human motivation. He could have done so by quoting Aristotle (384-322 BC), the “Eudemian Ethics” and the “Nicomachean Ethics,” but he chose to remain vague on this subject. In the 1st Letter to Lucilius, Seneca acknowledges indirectly that motivation is linked to time, that is, a person’s motivation becomes visible in the way he uses his time. The Letter warns us against wasting time on activities that are either worthless, unpromising or detrimental. Seneca regards the acquisition of knowledge, especially of philosophical knowledge, as a common characteristic of sound motivation, but is this really true? In his 6th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca affirms that he loves to learn because he wants to teach, but what happens to people who have no interest in teaching? The 6th Letter praises the motivation of Cleanthes (330-230 BC) for recording and conveying the insights gained by Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC), but what if Cleanthes had opted for developing his own philosophy? Is an individualist motivation less worthy than the devotion to someone else’s ideas? Neither does Seneca attain clarity in identifying the source of human motivation. In the 8th Letter to Lucilius, he calls for periods of seclusion and meditation, so that we can learn to tell important goals apart from trivialities, but fails to deliver solid criteria to separate the former from the latter. In the 16th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca gives his most detailed recommendation on motivation: he commends readers to seek spiritual wealth by living according to nature, and condemns those who are primarily motivated by becoming popular. I am afraid that Seneca’s views on motivation suffer from a great deal of personal bias. He was able to understand why he, and people like him, did what they did, but failed to deliver a general motivation theory. For instance, the 28th Letter to Lucilius criticises people that leave their home and engage in long-term foreign travel for no good reason. Why does Seneca dislike their motivation to travel? Because of his personal bias. He could not grasp that, for many individuals, it’s more interesting to engage in random travel than to study books on philosophy. Seneca does not even mention the key factor in motivation, namely, avocation or personal taste. Individuals tend to choose careers and hobbies they enjoy even if those fail to maximise their earnings. Avocation and personal tastes explain why two persons with equal talent will achieve widely differentiated results. Seneca should also have acknowledged the role played by our beliefs in our motivation. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/senecas-letters-on-motivation/