On Tranquillity of Mind (7)

But most people are pained and exasperated by the faults, not only of their friends and relatives, but also of their enemies. For abuse and rage on their part, envy and malevolence and jealousy, coupled with ill-will, are the bane of those who are subject to these faults, but it is fools whom they trouble and exasperate-as, for example, neighbours’ outbursts of temper and friends’ peevishness, and certain acts of dishonesty on the part of state officials charged with administration. By these things you yourself seem to me to be disturbed as much as anybody, and like the physicians to whom Sophocles[*] alludes -

With bitter drugs they purge the bitter bile -

so you become angry and bitter against these men and suffer from their passions and infirmities; but this is irrational. For even in the execution of matters committed to your personal care, most of them are in fact administered, not by simple and excellent natures, men naturally suited to be another’s instruments, as it were, but by jagged and crooked ones. Do not, therefore, consider it your business to straighten them out, and it would not in any case be easy to do so. But if - dealing with them as being what they are by nature, just as a physician uses forceps for teeth and clips for wounds[*] - you show yourself as gentle and self-controlled as you can, you will have greater pleasure in your own state of mind than distress at the unpleasantness and villainy of those others, and you will think that they, like dogs when they bark, are but fulfilling their nature; and no longer will you unwittingly gather into this present captiousness or infirmity of yours many grievances, like offscourings which drain into some hollow and low-lying ground,[*] thus letting yourself be infected with the vices of others. For since some of the philosophers censure even pity that is expended upon unfortunate persons, on the ground that it is good to give help to our neighbours, but not to participate in their sorrows nor give in to them; and, what is more important, since these philosophers do not allow us, when we perceive ourselves to be doing wrong and to be getting into a bad state of mind, to despair or be dejected, but bid us cure our vice painlessly, as we should: just consider, then - how can it be anything but irrational to allow ourselves to become vexed and troubled because not everyone who has dealings with us or approaches us is honourable and cultivated? No, my dear Paccius, you must see to it that we are not unwittingly taking a stand in alarm, not at the general wickedness of those we encounter, but at their particular wickedness to us; so our motive would be a selfish interest, not detestation of villainy.[*] For excessive apprehension about public affairs and unworthy appetites and desires, or, on the other hand, aversions and dislikes, engender suspicions and enmities toward persons who were, we think, the cause of our being deprived of some desirable things and of our encountering others which are unpleasant; it is the man who has become accustomed to adapt himself to public affairs easily and with self-control who becomes the most gracious and gentle in his dealings with his fellows.