Seneca: Fortune overwhelms no one who has not first…

Good conditions can quietly make us careless. When work is going well, health feels stable, or praise arrives easily, we may start to treat these gifts as permanent and necessary. Then a reversal feels not only painful but insulting. Stoic practice asks for a steadier relationship with success. Enjoy it. Use it well. But do not build your identity on the assumption that it must continue. In favorable periods, keep simple routines, maintain gratitude, and remember the people and practices that would support you if circumstances changed. This does not make you gloomy; it makes your enjoyment less fragile. Today, identify one thing currently going well. Rather than clinging to it, ask how you can use it responsibly now: share the credit, save some margin, learn from it, or appreciate it without claiming it as guaranteed. Stability comes from character, not a streak of luck.