Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 28: On travel as a cure for discontent
Letter 28 tells Lucilius that travel has not cured his gloom because he takes himself along wherever he goes.
What matters is the person who arrives, not the place; the mind must first lay down its burden, and the closing thought from Epicurus makes self-accusation the first step toward reform.
From the letter
You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.
The person you are matters more than the place to which you go; for that reason we should not make the mind a bondsman to any one place.
Live in this belief: “I am not born for any one corner of the universe; this whole world is my country.”
As it is, however, you are not journeying; you are drifting and being driven, only exchanging one place for another, although that which you seek,—to live well,—is found everywhere.
Therefore, as far as possible, prove yourself guilty, hunt up charges against yourself; play the part, first of accuser, then of judge, last of intercessor.
Coverage
Our editions hold 30 letters of 124 in Richard Mott Gummere’s translation (1917–1925); 29 of them have a page here, those that Joseph Baillard’s French translation (1861) also contains.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+ — 2 passages of this letter, each with its reference; Marcus Aurelius is free in the app.