On the Shortness of Life, Section 17

Seneca — The Senator

Why are we surprised that even their joys come mixed with fear? Their pleasures have no solid foundation. They're shaken by the same emptiness that created them in the first place. Think about how miserable their openly wretched times must be, when even the joys that make them feel superior to others are tainted with anxiety. All great blessings come with fear attached. Nothing is less reliable than extreme success. We need constant new strokes of luck just to keep what we already have. Even answered prayers require more prayers. Anything that depends on chance is uncertain. The higher it climbs, the more ways it can fall. Besides, no one enjoys something that's about to collapse. The lives of people who work desperately to gain what they'll have to work even harder to keep must be both miserable and short. They get what they want through endless struggle, then hold onto it with fear and trembling.

Seneca — The Senator Original

Why need we wonder at their very joys being mixed with fear? they do not rest upon any solid grounds, but are disturbed by the same emptiness from which they spring. What must we suppose to be the misery of such times as even they acknowledge to be wretched, when even the joys by which they elevate themselves and raise themselves above their fellows are of a mixed character. All the greatest blessings are enjoyed with fear, and no thing is so untrustworthy as extreme prosperity: we require fresh strokes of good fortune to enable us to keep that which we are enjoying, and even those of our prayers which are answered require fresh prayers. Everything for which we are dependent on chance is uncertain: the higher it rises, the more opportunities it has of falling. Moreover, no one takes any pleasure in what is about to fall into ruin: very wretched, therefore, as well as very short must be the lives of those who work very hard to gain what they must work even harder to keep: they obtain what they wish with infinite labour, and they hold what they have obtained with fear and trembling.