Essay Example on Frustration: Seneca's Lessons to Guide Us Through Tough Times

Introduction

Philosopher Seneca spent most of his precious time thinking of the frustrations that he came across during his time. Most of this frustrations acted as a setback to most of his goals or objectives. Most of this frustration experienced by Seneca still occur today in one way or the other in people's lives. But fortunately, people do depend on Seneca's lessons to guide them through the tough times triggered by frustration. The aim of this study is to focus on Seneca's views on the causes of frustration, injustice, anger and anxiety and the best way of living a calmer life.

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Seneca tries to separate frustration into four different categories that include, shock, anger, anxiety and injustice. According to Seneca, each of this category is based on frustrations of some kind and each tends to have different impacts on people.

Anger

Seneca perceives anger as a close relative to individual madness and also as a blind emotion that follows little in the path of sanity. According to him, what triggers anger is the dangerous optimistic notion about what other people and the world are like and how they are expected to be like(De Botton 83). In most cases, the fanciful thoughts of what is expected to be normal usually cloud peoples judgement and when they are not fulfilled anger tends to be born. Seneca's prescription of living a calmer life that is free from anger is that the thinkers should adjust their scale. People must reconcile themselves to the appropriate imperceptivity of existence. Serena indicates that with hope, people experience inevitable let down or unexpected outcomes. Therefore people will only stop being angry once they stop being much hopeful.

Anxiety

Anxiety tends to be a common feeling that is characterized by worry and uncertainty, while one is supposed to be feeling jovial. Anxiety tends to be the sense that one develops as one hopes for the best bout feels that that thing will turn youth to be the worst. Seneca perceives reassurance as one of the measures of eliminating anxiety, however, he considers it not to be rigid enough since it results to other opposite effects. Therefore, Seneca offers a more effective solution to living a calmer life, which is developing pragmatic acceptance and reflection. For instance, one may fail in his or her presentation, but that may not be such a big issue as one thinks. Seneca acclaims that people should train themselves to accept the things or situations that occur and focus on reflecting on how to improve the incurred mistakes.

Injustice

Ethics, morals and social norms usually form a key part of the society. Most societies usually practice the creed of justice or other things that aims at expounding peoples moral through vocalization. Even though the global codes may conflict with each other, independently, they usually obtain the truth form one specific simple truth, for example, evil leads to punishment and goodness leads to reward. The legal system is usually built around the simple principle's but unfortunately, the set codes are usually broken, or misapplied in situations when they are needed most, this makes us to feel frustrated due to the injustice that has occurred. Seneca's perspective of living a calmer life that is free from injustice is that peoples moral worth does not determine their destiny, therefore they should remain neutral at all time and they should expect anything to happen. According to Seneca, believing that the world fundamentally just tends to be wrong, this is because people tend to experience various things that they never expected to happen to them (De Botton 92).

Shock

Seneca indicates that in the same grain of anger a person finds shock. Shock usually occur as a result of going through various emotional experiences. For example, the loss of love or life tends to be a difficult occurrence for any individual. It becomes difficult to imagine that a certain day will hold a very different fate from other days. The experience of shock usually leaves every individual wondering how a certain thing or action could have happened. Seneca's prescription of living a calmer life that is free from shock is that people should understand that there is nothing that fortune does not dare or take away. The possibility of a disaster to occur should remain in peoples mind at all time this will assist in preparing them psychologically thus minimising incidences of shock. People should also not assume that there is any part of the world that is safe since nature has not created anything that is immobile. Seneca indicates that people should expect everything at any time thus minimising the incidences of shock.

Conclusion

Philosopher Seneca spent most of his precious time thinking of the frustrations that he came across during his time. Most of this frustration experienced by Seneca still occur today in one way or the other in people's lives, therefore people have to depend on Seneca's lessons to guide them through the tough situations brought about by frustration. Seneca separates frustration into four different categories whereby each category is based on some kind of frustration but with different impacts. These categories include: first, anxiety which tends to be a common feeling that is characterized by worry and uncertainty, while one is supposed to be feeling jovial. Secondly, shock n which usually occurs as a result of going through various emotional experiences. Thirdly, injustice, The legal system is usually built around the simple principle's but unfortunately, the set codes are usually broken. Fourth, anger which is perceived as a close relative to individual madness and also as a blind emotion that follows little in the path of sanity

Works cited

De Botton, A. (2013). The consolations of philosophy. Vintage.