Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music.

Download the app today.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life.

On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

This is the most expensive thing.

Since stoicism was founded, the stoics have warned again and again about the downsides of abundant wealth.

Seneca must have been suspicious of those warnings because he found his way to becoming one of the richest people in the Roman Empire.

He accumulated a net worth of what would be hundreds of millions of dollars into today's money.

He famously owned 300 ivory tables for entertaining.

He made so many enormous loans to colonists in Britain that when the debt was called in in around 60 AD,

it set off the Budacama massacre in which tens of thousands of people ultimately died.

In letters from a stoic written during the final three years of his life,

Seneca would warn again and again about the burdens of becoming rich.

Very often, he writes the things that cost nothing, cost us the most heavily.

Most people think he says in the quest for an acquisition of money that one has much to gain and little to lose.

In a modern context, it would be the sales rep seeing only the increase in pay and status that comes with the promotion,

not the decrease in autonomy and the peace of mind that comes with the responsibilities of being a manager of an entire sales force.

But if I accept the promotion, I'll have more money.

But Seneca anticipates this reply.

He says, yes, you will also have more trouble and more people bringing you problems, more things taking up your time,

more possessions to worry about, more time wasted thinking about how to own more and more money.

...