I was cleaning out some old files when I came across a one-pager I had typed in 1999, transcribing the “six mistakes of man” identified by Cicero. Good stuff:

• The delusion that personal gain is made at the expense of others
• The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected
• Insisting that a thing is impossible because it hasn’t been accomplished
• Refusing to set aside trivial preferences
• Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying
• Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do

Perhaps those Romans were on to something.