Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

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MY RELATIONSHIP TO SENECA AND HIS WRITINGS changed once the crisis hit.

I was sitting in my office when an email arrived from a dear friend. I opened it with curiosity, expecting to find something pleasant. But the text screamed out at me. She had written, only moments before, “I just took half a bottle of tranquilizers. I’m sorry for the pain I caused you in your life.”

That was the entire message.

I went cold in disbelief and read it twice just to make sure.

Then, while feeling unspeakable grief, I immediately got into my car, drove over to her place, and took her to the emergency room. She was in the hospital for a couple of days, and then transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Once in the psychiatric hospital, she begged me to help her get out. This was the beginning of her ordeal, and I was essentially the only person around to help her.

Of course, it was an ordeal for me, too. We had been in love. And it literally felt like the bottom had fallen out of my world. Her life could have come to an end. Fortunately, it didn’t. But for me, the raw emotions and despair I was feeling were overwhelming. It felt like my life was ending, too: not physically, but emotionally.

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