Seneca on limits
From Seneca’s On Tranquility of Mind. Original latin version here.
Yet nothing will free us from these disturbances of the mind so well as always fixing some limit to our advancement: men should be encouraged not to give to fortune the power of stopping their progress, but to halt far within their highest ambitions. In this way also some desires will sharpen the mind and these, being limited, will not lead into great and uncertain ventures.
In other words… tamp it down kid. You cannot control when and what fate will do to you, but you can insulate yourself from the damage by anticipating fate limiting yourself and acting before it acts. The the limited is achievable, the limitless is anguish and disaster, elation and success equally distributed but only on fate’s peculiar and uncertain schedule.
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