Stoicism 1 – Week 5: Those ‘below’ us

Not yet trial-taught Not yet expert-reviewed

This week: read the passage from Seneca’s Letter 47 slowly, read the context carefully, and each day do one act of respect for someone who is serving you.

Measurable goal: one act of respect for someone who serves you each day, on at least 5 of 7 days.

1. Traditional teaching

[Traditional teaching] Stoicism teaches that all people share one nature, and that high or low standing is a matter of fortune that can change at any time. In Letter 47, Seneca praises Lucilius for living on friendly terms with the enslaved people in his household.

Reading it in context

• Ancient Rome was a slave society. Seneca was a slave owner. In this letter he criticises Romans for being haughty, cruel and insulting towards slaves, but he does not call for slavery to be abolished. This lesson neither defends nor softens that institution.
• [Inference] This week’s exercise borrows the core idea of the passage, that the people who serve us are human as we are, and applies it to life today: shop staff, drivers, delivery workers, cleaners, domestic helpers. They are paid workers, not slaves; the comparison lies only in how easily we stop seeing them.
• "Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters" is close to the Golden Rule found in many traditions (see Convergence 0, Week 3). In Seneca, the reason given is fortune: anyone can fall to the other person’s position.

2. What science finds

• [Verified] A 2018 meta-analysis of 27 experiments with 4,045 people found that performing acts of kindness raises the doer’s own well-being by a small-to-moderate amount. The studies are often small, with low average statistical power. (Curry et al. 2018)
• [Inference] This week’s acts of respect are a kind of small kindness. The study does not measure this exact exercise, and what matters more is how the other person is treated, not whether the doer feels better.

3. Practice for adults

About 3 minutes of reading, a few seconds for each act, 2 minutes in the evening.

1. Read (3 minutes). Read the passage and the context slowly.
2. One act a day. For one person who is serving you, do one small thing: use their name if you know it, look them in the eye when you thank them, do not hurry them when they are busy, clear your table before you leave, be patient when they make a mistake.
3. Write one line (2 minutes, evening). What did I do today, and for whom? Was there a moment I failed to see someone who was serving me?
4. Tick it. At the end of the week, count the days; the goal is at least 5 of 7.

4. Kids' corner 6+

daynentang already has a family activity, Thanking working people (in Vietnamese). This week you can do that activity with one small extra step (5 minutes, with an adult):

1. On the way to school or the market, count with the child the people who are working for everyone: the security guard, the shop assistant, the street sweeper.
2. The child picks one person and says thank you, with the adult standing beside them.
3. At home, ask: "How did that person look when you thanked them?"

Do not push the child to talk to strangers if they feel shy. Do not discuss slavery with the child.

5. Stop practising if

• You feel panic, have flashbacks of trauma, have a lasting sense that you or the world are "not real", lose sleep for several nights, or have thoughts of harming yourself.
• You are the one being treated as "below" at work and the passage brings back hurt. This exercise does not ask you to endure more; you have the right to seek help.
• If so, stop and see Get help now.

6. Foundation skills on daynentang

The family activity Thanking working people on daynentang is the main page for doing this with children (in Vietnamese).

7. Practice for today

The next person who serves you today: ask their name, or thank them while looking them in the eye.

Science sources

• Curry OS, Rowland LA, Van Lissa CJ, Zlotowitz S, McAlaney J, Whitehouse H (2018). Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 320–329. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.02.014