I. Everyone Is Looking for It. Almost No One Finds It.

Seneca opens his essay to his older brother Gallio. The happy life is what everyone wants and almost no one defines.

Everyone wants to live happily, brother Gallio. That is the one desire all human beings share. The problem is that most people have no clear idea what a happy life actually is. They want the destination but cannot read the map. They set out with great energy and end up further away the harder they try, because they are moving in the wrong direction.

The first step is to define clearly what we are aiming at. Only then can we choose the right path. Without a fixed destination, every road looks equally good.

Here is the first mistake people make: they follow the crowd. They assume that because everyone around them is moving in a certain direction, that direction must be right. It is not. In a great press of people, when the crowd surges forward, nobody can fall without pulling someone down with them. The people who went first are destroying the people who came after. Following without thinking is how individuals go wrong, and how entire generations go wrong together.

The majority view on how to live is almost always mistaken. Not because the majority is stupid but because the majority has never stopped to examine whether what they are pursuing is worth pursuing. They inherited their goals from the people around them, who inherited them from the people around them.

Do not decide where you are going by looking at where everyone else is going. Decide by thinking.