What makes Seneca's observation sting is that he's not offering comfort—he's stating a hard bargain. We tend to think of fresh starts as escapes, clean breaks from the past, but he reminds us that every beginning is built from the wreckage of something that had to die first. When you leave a job to pursue your calling, you're not entering a void; you're standing in the ruins of your former routine, your old paycheck, perhaps even your identity as "the person who worked there." The wisdom lies in accepting that you cannot have the second act without closing the first one, which means every rebirth costs something real.