You ask me what I think we should use to fight off this restlessness and boredom. Athenodorus gives the best answer: "Keep yourself busy with real work — managing public affairs and doing your duties as a citizen. Some people spend their days exercising in the sun and taking care of their bodies. Athletes find it most helpful to spend most of their time building up the muscles and strength they've dedicated their lives to developing. In the same way, if you're training your mind for the struggles of political life, it's far more honorable to stay active than to sit idle. A person who wants to serve his country and all humanity exercises himself and does good at the same time when he throws himself into business. He works as hard as he can for both the public and for private citizens."
You ask me what I think we had better make use of to help us to support this ennui. "The best thing," as Athenodorus says, "is to occupy oneself with business with the management of affairs of state and the duties of a citizen: for as some pass the day in exercising themselves in the sun and in taking care of their bodily health, and athletes find it most useful to spend the greater part of their time in feeding up the muscles and strength to whose cultivation they have devoted their lives; so too for you who are training your mind to take part in the struggles of political life, it is far more honourable to be thus at work than to be idle. He whose object is to be of service to his countrymen and to all mortals, exercises himself and does good at the same time when he is engrossed in business and is working to the best of his ability both in the interests of the public and of private men.