Let us resume our argument.

When we are in a fever everything tastes sour and unpleasant, but when we see others eating and enjoying the same things, we no longer blame our food and drink but our disease. And so we shall stop blaming and worrying over the state of the country, if we see others cheerfully and happily putting up with it.

It is good too for our peace of mind, in the midst of disturbing events, not to overlook all our advantages and comforts, and to lessen our troubles by mixing them with our blessings. When our eyes now are dazzled by things too bright, we turn them away and ease them by looking at fresh green grass, but our minds we keep strained over painful things, and compel them to brood on unhappy ideas, wrenching them by force away from what is more pleasant. Yet we might aptly apply here what was said to the meddlesome man,

Malign intruder, why so keen to spy a neighbor's fault, while not seeing your own?

It is folly to go on grieving over things we have lost, without rejoicing over what we have left. But like small children, who, if one of their many playthings is taken away by anyone, cry and scream and throw the rest away too, so we, when fortune robs us of a treasure, wail and mourn and treat everything else as worthless to us.

Well, what blessings have we? someone might say. Well, what have we not? One has a reputation, another a house, another a wife, another a lover. When Antipater of Tarsus before his death was reckoning up his pieces of good fortune, he did not omit event he delightful voyage he had taken from Cilicia to Athens. So we too should not overlook common pleasures but take account even of them, be glad that we live and are well well and see the sun, that there is no war going on or civil strife, that the earth is open to the farmer's tilling and that whoever wills may fearlessly sail the sea, that we are free to speak and act or be silent and idle. We shall get more contentment from the possession of these blessings, if we imagine ourselves without them and remind ourselves often how people who are ill long for health, and people at war for peace, and an unknown stranger in a great city for names and friends, and how miserable it is to be deprived of what we once had. Then all these good things will not seem great and precious to us only when they are gone and nothing while we have them. For absence of a thing does not actually add anything to its value.

Nor should we go about acquiring things we regard as valuable, and always be trembling for rear of losing them because they are valuable, and yet, while we have them, neglect and think little of them. We should use them constantly for our pleasure and enjoy them, so that we may bear their loss, if that happens, with more equanimity. Most people, however, as Arcesilaus said, think they must be looking closely and in every detail at other people's poems and paintings and statues, studying them with the eyes of the body and the mind, but never glance at their own lives, which contain much to give them joy. They are forever gazing abroad and admiring other people's reputations and fortunes, as adulterers admire other men's wives and despise their own. But it is a great help towards peace of mind to look for the most part at home and at things around us, or if not, to turn our thoughts to people worse off than ourselves and not, as many do, compare ourselves only with those who are better off. As for example, men in chains think their fellows are happy who are released, and released prisoners think freemen are, and freemen citizens, and citizens the rich, and the rich satraps, and satraps kings, and kings the gods, for by then they want to hurl thunderbolts and flash lightning. So always yearning for something above them, men are never thankful for what they have. But one whose mind thinks of a whole does not sit down despondent and miserable if he is less renowned or less rich than some of the myriads of humankind the sun looks down upon, who feed on the fruits of the whole world [Simonides], but goes on his way singing praises of his divinity and his life, because it is in so many ways fairer than that of countless thousands.

Whenever, then, you are brimful of admiration for someone carried by in his litter, who seems a greater man than yourself, lower your eyes and look at his bearers. And when you think, as the man from Hellespont did, that Xerxes was a marvel for crossing the straits on his bridge of boats, look at the men who dug through Mount Arthos under the lash, and at those whose ears were cut off because the bridge was broken by the waves. Consider their state of mind too, how they think your life and your position marvelous. When Socrates heard one of his friends saying how expensive Athens was, how Chian wine costs a mina, a purple robe three minas, a half pint of honey five drachmas, he took him to the bread shops. Half a peck of barley meal for an obol? Athens is cheap! Then to the vest maker. A sleeveless vest for only ten drachmas? Athens is cheap! So when we hear anyone saying of us that we live in a small way and are terribly unfortunate because we are not consuls or governors, we may answer, We live in a grand way and our lot is enviable. We do not beg, we bear no heavy burdens, we toady to no one.

But since in our folly we are accustomed to living more with an eye to other people than to ourselves, and human nature is so jealous and covetous that it rejoices less in its own blessings than it is pained by those of others, do not only look at the much-vaunted splendor of the men you envy and admire, but open and draw, as it were, the gaudy curtain of their pomp and show and step inside. You will see that they have much to vex and distress them. The well-known Pittacus renowned for his fortitude, wisdom and justice, was once entertaining some guests, when his wife came in in a rage and upset the table. The guests were in consternation, but he said, Every one of you has some trouble, and he who only has mine is very well off. There are many such cases, unknown to the public, among the rich and the famous and even among kings, for pride throws a veil over them.

O happy son of Atreus, child of fate, blest is thy lot.
[Homer, Iliad]

Congratulations like this come from outside, through a halo of arms and horses and war, but the inward voice of suffering testifies against such vainglory.

A heavy doom is laid on me by Zeus, the son of Cronos.
[Homer, Iliad]

By reflections like these one may wean oneself from the discontent with one's own lot and the belittlement and disparagement of one's own possessions which come from too much admiring one's neighbor.

Another thing which is a serious hindrance to our peace of mind is failure to proportion our desires to our means, and spread of too much sail, as it were, in hopes of great things. Then, when unsuccessful, we blame Heaven and Fortune and not our own folly. For a man is not unfortunate who tries to shoot an arrow with a plow, or to hunt a hare with an ox, nor has he an evil spirit opposing him if he fails to catch deer with fishing nets and seines, but in his silly stupidity he has attempted the impossible. Self-love is mainly to blame, making people desire to be first, ambitious in all they do, and insatiably eager to snatch hold of everything. They want no only to be rich and learned and strong and convivial and attractive, and friends of kings and governors of cities, all at the same time, but they are dissatisfied if their dogs and horses and quails and cocks are not the finest and the best. Dionysus the Elder was not content with being the most powerful tyrant of his time, but because he could not sing better than Philoxenus the poet, or beat Plato in dialectics, he was so angry and exasperated that he sent theone to labor in his stone quarries, and the other as a slave to Aegina. Yet even among the gods one has one function and another another. One is called the god of war, another the god of prophecy, another the god of wealth, and Aphrodite, since she takes no part in feats of war, is dispatched by Zeus to marriages and bridals.

There are some pursuits which cannot be carried on together, but are by their very nature exclusive of one another. For instance, training in oratory and the study of mathematics require time and leisure, whereas political influence and the friendship of kings are not won without activity in public affairs and constant work. Wine and much eating of meat make the body strong and vigorous, but blunt the intellect. Continuous attention to the making and saving of money increases one's wealth, but disdain and scorn of riches are a great help to philosophy. All things, therefore, are not in everyone's power, and we should heed the maxim inscribed in Apollo's temple, Know thyself, and act so as to carry out our natural bent, and not let ambition drag us and force our nature into some other kind of life.

He who chafes and frets because he is not at the same time a lion reared on the mountains, exulting in his strength [Homer, Odyssey], and a little Maltese dog cherished in the lap of a rich widow, is out of his senses. Not a bit wiser is the man who would like to be an Empedocles, or a Plato, or a Democritus, writing about the universe and the true nature of things, at the same time married like Euphorion to a rich old woman, and to revel and drink like Medius with Alexander, and who is sore and hurt if he is not also admired for his wealth, like Ismenias, and for his valor like Epaminodes. Yet runners in a race are not upset because they do not carry off the wrestlers'crowns, but are delighted with their own.

Men who have such respect for their own walk of life will not be envious of their neighbors'. We do not nowadays expect a vine to bear figs nor an olive grapes, yet if we have not at one and the same time the distinction of being both rich and learned, both generals and philosophers, both flatterers and outspoken, both thrifty and extravagant, we blame and scold and despise ourselves for living a maimed and imperfect life. We see, however, that nature teaches us the same lesson. She has provided that different animals eat different kinds of food, and has not made all carnivorous or seed-gatherers or root-diggers. So too she has given to humankind various means of getting a livelihood, one by keeping sheep, another by plowing, another by fowling, while another is fed from the sea. [Pindar, Isthmian Odes] We ought therefore to select the calling appropriate for ourselves and work hard at it, and leave other people to theirs.

Every man has in himself stores of content and discontent, and the jars containing blessings and evils do not stand on the threshold of Zeus, but are here in our own minds, as may be seen from the differences in our attitudes. For foolish men overlook and disregard their present blessings, because their thoughts are always intent on the future, but the wise keep the past clearly in mind through memory. To foolish people the present, which allows us but the briefest instant to touch it and then slips from our grasp, does not seem to be ours or belong to us at all. Like the rope-maker depicted in Hades who permits an ass to eat up his rope as fast as he plaits it, so with most people, a stupid and ungrateful forgetfulness has possession of them, and wipes from their minds every past accomplishment, success, pleasant holiday, piece of good luck or happiness, breaking the unity of life, which comes from weaving of the past into the present. For by separating yesterday from today, as if it were something different, and tomorrow, likewise, as if it were not the same as today, it soon makes what is now happening into what has never taken place, by not recalling it. Those in the schools who deny the growth of bodies on grounds of the continual flux of substance, make each of us in theory different from himself, and, therefore, a different man. So those who do not keep or store in memory things that are past, but let them float away, actually leave themselves vacant and empty daily, while they cling to tomorrow, as if what happened last year or day before yesterday mattered nothing to them, or had not happened to them at all..

This habit, then, is one interference with peace of mind, and another still worse is the way in which, like flies that slide down the smooth surface in mirrors, and stick fast in rough spots and cracks, men glide over the cheerful and agreeable things in their lives, and snarl themselves up in memories of unpleasant things. As Euripides says,

There may no separate good and ill be here,
But only mixture of the two, and rightly.

And we ought not to be disenheartened or despondent at what is wrong, but, like musicians who always elide over their worse playing with their better and drown what is poor in what is excellent, we should make our checkered life into something harmonious and congenial to us.