Seneca,

“Do not, however, deem yourself truly happy until you find that you can live before men’s eyes, until your walls protect but do not hide you; although we are apt to believe that these walls surround us, not to enable us to live more safely, but that we may sin more secretly.”

Privacy is a funny thing.  There are folks close to us for whom the idea is barely existent, and others for whom even the mildest interjection is an affront.  The advice is good nonetheless, that we should live as if every act we take is witnessed by some great person whom we should admire.  Whither that be the Sage, God, or merely the person we wish we were and are striving to be.

Farewell.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.