Plain
Seneca — The Senator

This hatred of other people's success, combined with despair about your own life, creates a mind that's angry at fate. You start complaining constantly about the times you live in. You retreat into isolation and brood over how miserable you are, until you become sick of yourself. The human mind naturally wants to move and stay active. It loves any chance to get excited and forget about itself. The worse someone's character is, the more they crave this kind of distraction. They want to exhaust themselves with frantic activity, like how infected wounds crave the very hands that hurt them, or how a rash enjoys being scratched.

On Peace of Mind, Section 2 19 of 100
Calm Your Mind Human Nature
Seneca — The Senator Original

This dislike of other men's progress and despair of one's own produces a mind angered against fortune, addicted to complaining of the age in which it lives, to retiring into corners and brooding over its misery, until it becomes sick and weary of itself: for the human mind is naturally nimble and apt at movement: it delights in every opportunity of excitement and forgetfulness of itself, and the worse a man's disposition the more he delights in this, because he likes to wear himself out with busy action, just as some sores long for the hands that injure them and delight in being touched, and the foul itch enjoys anything that scratches it.

On Peace of Mind, Section 2 19 of 100
Seneca — The Senator

This creates weariness and self-hatred. The mind tosses back and forth, unable to find peace anywhere. People suffer through their forced idleness, unhappy and unwilling. When you're too ashamed to admit what's really bothering you, when pride makes you push your pain down inside, all those trapped desires choke each other in that small space. This brings on depression and despair. The unstable mind wavers a thousand ways — suspended by hopes that never come true, crushed by ones that fail. This is why people hate their own laziness, complain they have nothing to do, and watch others succeed with bitter jealousy. Miserable idleness breeds envy. When people can't succeed themselves, they want everyone else to fail too.

On Peace of Mind, Section 2 18 of 100
Calm Your Mind Knowing Yourself
Seneca — The Senator Original

Hence arises that weariness and dissatisfaction with oneself, that tossing to and fro of a mind which can nowhere find rest, that unhappy and unwilling endurance of enforced leisure. In all cases where one feels ashamed to confess the real cause of one's suffering, and where modesty leads one to drive one's sufferings inward, the desires pent up in a little space without any vent choke one another. Hence comes melancholy and drooping of spirit, and a thousand waverings of the unsteadfast mind, which is held in suspense by unfulfilled hopes, and saddened by disappointed ones: hence comes the state of mind of those who loathe their idleness, complain that they have nothing to do, and view the progress of others with the bitterest jealousy: for an unhappy sloth favours the growth of envy, and men who cannot succeed themselves wish every one else to be ruined.

On Peace of Mind, Section 2 18 of 100
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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