Maybe it will help you get ahead. Maybe it will help you get rich. Maybe it will help you get closer to power, help you keep power.

As we see with Seneca, compromises can pay off…but they come at a high cost.

Seneca was more pragmatic, more ambitious, more willing to turn a blind eye than his fellow Stoics (like Thrasea, whom we profile in Lives of the Stoics). This made him rich and powerful…but he paid for it with his integrity and his peace. And in the end, he paid for it with his life. “For what is a man profited,” goes one of the most haunting questions in the Book of Matthew (16:26), “if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

We forget this timeless wisdom—and these cautionary tales—at our peril. It will not turn out differently for us. We will not be the exception. Do not lie to yourself. Do not trade your soul away. Because once it’s gone, you cannot get it back. No amount of power or success will be worth it. No earthly reward is worth your values—or your ability to look at yourself in the mirror.