Seneca's version was short and voluntary: "three or four days at a time," he suggested. A modern equivalent might be walking instead of driving for a week, or going a weekend without takeout. The aim isn't hardship for its own sake. It's finding out, as Seneca put it, whether this is really "the condition that I feared."
7. Switching off and playing
Seneca didn't think a good life meant constant effort. "Neither ought we always to keep the mind strained to the same pitch, but it ought sometimes to be relaxed by amusement," he wrote. He pointed out that "Socrates did not blush to play with little boys." He also recommended mixing solitude with company: "solitude will cure us when we are sick of crowds, and crowds will cure us when we are sick of solitude" (Of Tranquillity of Mind 17).
Many people remember plenty of both from their childhood afternoons: hours alone in a bedroom or backyard, followed by a crowd of neighborhood kids at dusk. Many adults now find it hard to do either. Free time fills up with tasks, and rest often means a screen.
One way to practice is to plan something purely for fun with no goal attached, like a card game, a walk with no destination or an afternoon with a hobby you're not trying to get good at.
Not every childhood was a golden age
It's easy to romanticize the past. Plenty of children in the 1960s and 70s had difficult, unsafe or neglected childhoods, and freedom from supervision sometimes meant real danger. Parents had real reasons to change course, too. The One False Move researchers noted that between 1971 and 1990, traffic in Britain nearly doubled. Many families now also face pressures their parents didn't, from longer commutes to two working parents.
It also isn't fair to suggest that younger people lack strength. Many of them handle pressures earlier generations never faced. And these strengths aren't fixed by the decade you grew up in. They're habits, and habits can be built at any age.
Seneca offers a way to practice deliberately, whatever childhood you had.
One place to start
Choose one small comfort to go without for a weekend. It might be your phone for an afternoon, takeout food or the car for short trips.
When you notice the urge to reach for it, ask Seneca's question: "Is this the condition that I feared?" The answer is often more reassuring than you'd expect.
