A Guide to the Good Life the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

A guide to the skilful life.

A Guide to the Adept Life: The Aboriginal Fine art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine

The wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, in the context of the modern era. Notable Stoics include Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus.

Negative Visualization: What is the worst that can happen?

Stoics are indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.

Negative visualization is to daily living as salt is to cooking. Although it requires minimal fourth dimension, energy, and talent for a cook to add together salt to food, the taste of almost whatsoever food he adds information technology to will be enhanced as a result. In much the aforementioned way, although practicing negative visualization requires minimal time, energy, and talent, those who do it will find that their capacity to savour life is significantly enhanced. You might notice yourself, after engaging in negative visualization, embracing the very life that, a brusk time before, you had complained wasn't worth living.

There is a divergence betwixt contemplating something bad happening and worrying near it. Contemplation is an intellectual exercise, and it is possible for u.s. to behave such exercises without its affecting our tranquility.

Living as if each twenty-four hour period were our last is only an extension of the negative visualization technique: As we get about our day, we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that nosotros volition not live forever and therefore that this day could exist our last. Such reflection, rather than converting u.s. into hedonists, will make the states appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity.

Hedonic adaptation. Winning a lottery typically allows someone to alive the life of his dreams. It turns out, though, that later an initial period of exhilaration, lottery winners finish up about every bit happy as they previously were.4 They start taking their new Ferrari and mansion for granted, the way they previously took their cramped flat for granted.

Past thinking virtually how things could be worse, we forestall or contrary the hedonic adaptation process.

Dichotomy of Command and Desire of Fame & Fortune

As a Stoic novice, you volition want, equally part of becoming expert in applying the trichotomy of control, to do internalizing your goals. Instead of having winning a tennis friction match as your goal, for example, make it your goal to gear up for the match as best y'all can and to try your hardest in the match

There was also understanding that ane wonderful fashion to tame our tendency to always want more is to persuade ourselves to want the things we already have. This seemed to be an of import insight, simply it left open up the question of how, exactly, we could reach this. They developed a fairly elementary technique that, if skilful, can make the states glad, if only for a time, to exist the person we are, living the life we happen to exist living, almost regardless of what that life might exist.

Stoic merits that many of the things we desire—well-nigh notably, fame and fortune—are not worth pursuing.

[A] Things complete in your command

[B] Things completely out of your control.

[C] Something in between [A] and [B].

A practicing Stoic will keep the trichotomy of control firmly in mind every bit he goes almost his daily affairs. He will perform a kind of triage in which he sorts the elements of his life into three categories: those over which he has complete control, those over which he has no control at all, and those over which he has some but not complete control.

And when he concerns himself with things in this last category, he volition exist conscientious to set internal rather than external goals for himself and will thereby avoid a considerable amount of frustration and disappointment.

If nosotros want our life to go well, Epictetus says, we should, rather than wanting events to conform to our desires, make our desires conform to events; we should, in other words, want events "to happen as they do happen.

It will accept both effort and willpower to carelessness our erstwhile goals, such as the attainment of fame and fortune, and replace them with a new goal, namely, the attainment of tranquility

Fatalism

Like almost ancient Romans, the Stoics took it for granted that they had a fate. More precisely, they believed in the being of 3 goddesses known as the Fates. Each of these goddesses had a chore: Clotho wove life, Lachesis measured it, and Atropos cut it. Try as they might, people could non escape the destiny chosen for them by the Fates.

We tin spend our days wishing our circumstances were unlike, but if we allow ourselves to exercise this, nosotros will spend our days in a state of dissatisfaction. Alternatively, if nosotros can learn to want whatever it is nosotros already have, we won't have to piece of work to fulfill our desires in order to gain satisfaction; they will already accept been fulfilled.

Ane of the things nosotros've got, though, is this very moment, and we accept an important choice with respect to information technology: We tin can either spend this moment wishing it could exist dissimilar, or nosotros can comprehend this moment. If we habitually exercise the former, we will spend much of our life in a country of dissatisfaction; if we habitually do the latter, we volition enjoy our life. This, I recollect, is why the Stoics recommend that we be fatalistic with respect to the present. It is why Marcus reminds us that all nosotros own is the nowadays moment and why he advises united states of america to live in "this fleeting instant."five (This last advice, of form, echoes the Buddhist advice that we should attempt to live in the moment—some other interesting parallel between Stoicism and Buddhism.)

Practicing voluntary Poverty and dealing with the night side of Pleasure

Instead of merely thinking near what it would exist like to lose our wealth, we should periodically "do poverty": We should, that is, content ourselves with "the scantiest and cheapest fare" and with "coarse and rough dress.

According to Seneca, Epicurus, a philosophical rival to the Stoics, likewise skillful poverty.His goal in doing so, however, appears to have been dissimilar from that of Seneca. Whereas Seneca wanted to appreciate what he had, Epicurus wanted to examine the things he thought he needed and so he could determine which of them he could in fact live without. He realized that in many cases, we piece of work hard to obtain something considering we are convinced that nosotros would exist miserable without it. The trouble is that nosotros can live perfectly well without some of these things, but we won't know which they are if we don't try living without them.

Musonius takes this technique one pace further: He thinks that besides living as if bad things had happened to u.s.a., we should sometimes crusade them to happen. In particular, we should periodically cause ourselves to feel discomfort that we could easily take avoided. We might accomplish this by underdressing for cold weather condition or going shoeless. Or nosotros might periodically allow ourselves to become thirsty or hungry, even though h2o and food are at mitt, and nosotros might sleep on a hard bed, even though a soft i is available.

What the Stoics were advocating, and then, is more appropriately described as a program of voluntary discomfort than as a program of self-inflicted discomfort.

A tertiary benefit of undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort is that it helps us appreciate what we already take. In particular, by purposely causing ourselves discomfort, we will better appreciate whatever comfort nosotros experience. It is, of course, nice to be in a warm room when it is cold and blustery outside, merely if nosotros actually want to relish that warmth and sense of shelter, we should get outside in the cold for a while and and so come back in.

Also PERIODICALLY ENGAGING in acts of voluntary discomfort, we should, say the Stoics, periodically forgo opportunities to experience pleasance. This is because pleasure has a nighttime side. Indeed, pursuing pleasure, Seneca warns, is like pursuing a wild brute: On beingness captured, information technology tin turn on usa and tear the states to pieces. Or, changing the metaphor a scrap, he tells us that intense pleasures, when captured by the states, become our captors, meaning that the more pleasures a homo captures, "the more masters will he take to serve.

Hither is how, according to Seneca, a Stoic sage would explicate the departure between the Stoic accept on pleasure and that of the ordinary person: Whereas the ordinary person embraces pleasure, the sage enchains it; whereas the ordinary person thinks pleasure is the highest practiced, the sage doesn't think it is even a practiced; and whereas the ordinary person does everything for the sake of pleasance, the sage does nothing.

WillPower

What Stoics discover, though, is that willpower is like muscle ability: The more they exercise their muscles, the stronger they get, and the more they practise their will, the stronger it gets. Indeed, past practicing Stoic self-denial techniques over a long period, Stoics can transform themselves into individuals remarkable for their backbone and cocky-control. They will be able to do things that others dread doing, and they volition be able to refrain from doing things that others cannot resist doing. They will, every bit a upshot, be thoroughly in control of themselves. This self-control makes information technology far more likely that they will achieve the goals of their philosophy of life, and this in plow dramatically increases their chances of living a skillful life.

"Guiltlessness comes with time to spare, lechery has never a moment."

If y'all are going to publish, you must exist willing to tolerate criticism.

Social Relationship

They thought that man is by nature a social animal and therefore that nosotros have a duty to form and maintain relationships with other people, despite the trouble they might crusade the states.

Indeed, when we awaken in the morn, rather than lazily lying in bed, we should tell ourselves that nosotros must get upwards to do the proper piece of work of man, the work we were created to perform.

Throughout the millennia and across cultures, those who have thought carefully about desire have drawn the conclusion that spending our days working to get whatever it is we find ourselves wanting is unlikely to bring usa either happiness or tranquility.

THE STOICS, it should by at present be articulate, are faced with a dilemma. If they acquaintance with other people, they run the risk of having their quiet disturbed by them; if they preserve their repose by shunning other people, they volition fail to practice their social duty to course and maintain relationships. The question for the Stoics, then, is this: How can they preserve their tranquillity while interacting with other

We should instead seek, as friends, people who share our (proper Stoic) values and in item, people who are doing a better job than we are of living in accordance with these values.

Not to waste product time speculating nearly what our neighbors are doing, saying, thinking, or scheming. Nor should we allow our mind to be filled with "sensual imaginings, jealousies, envies, suspicions, or whatever other sentiments" about them that we would blush to admit. A good Stoic, Marcus says, volition not recollect most what other people are thinking except when he must do and then in order to serve the public interest.

Putting annoying incidents into their catholic context, he thinks, will brand their triviality apparent and will therefore alleviate our badgerer.

Insults

I have him(the insulter) to be a thoroughly contemptible private. Under such circumstances, rather than feeling hurt by his insults, I should experience relieved: If he disapproves of what I am doing, then what I am doing is doubtless the right thing to practise. What should worry me is if this contemptible person approved of what I am doing. If I say anything at all in response to his insults, the near appropriate comment would be, "I'm relieved that you feel that way about me."

Exist increasingly indifferent to other people's opinions of us. Nosotros volition not go through our life with the goal of gaining their approval or avoiding their disapproval, and considering we are indifferent to their opinions, we will feel no sting when they insult us. Indeed, a Stoic sage, were one to be, would probably have the insults of his fellow humans to exist like the barking of a dog. When a canis familiaris barks, nosotros might brand a mental notation that the dog in question appears to dislike u.s.a., but we would be utter fools to permit ourselves to become upset past this fact, to go through the rest of the day thinking, "Oh, dear! That canis familiaris doesn't like me!"

They would go on to remind me that my values are things over which I have complete control. Therefore, if something external harms me, it is my own fault: I should have adopted unlike values.

Seneca too approves of Socrates' response to an even more abusive insult. Someone once came up to Socrates and, without warning, boxed his ears. Rather than getting angry, Socrates made a joke about what a nuisance it is, when nosotros go out, that we tin can never be sure whether or non to wear a helmet.

Freedom, Wealth

Stoics value their freedom, and they are therefore reluctant to do anything that will give others power over them. Merely if we seek social status, we requite other people power over us: Nosotros have to do things calculated to make them admire u.s., and we take to refrain from doing things that will trigger their aversion. Epictetus therefore advises us not to seek social status, since if we get in our goal to delight others, nosotros volition no longer be free to please ourselves. We will, he says, have enslaved ourselves.

IRONICALLY, By REFUSING to seek the admiration of other people, Stoics might succeed in gaining their (perhaps grudging) admiration. Many people, for instance, will construe the Stoics' indifference to public opinion as a sign of self-confidence:

There is indeed a danger that if we are exposed to a luxurious lifestyle, nosotros volition lose our ability to take delight in simple things.

Rather than mourning the loss of their power to savor elementary things, they take pride in their newly gained disability to enjoy anything but "the all-time."

HOW MUCH WEALTH should we acquire? Co-ordinate to Seneca, our financial goal should exist to larn "an amount that does non descend to poverty, and however is not far removed from poverty." We should, he says, larn to restrain luxury, cultivate frugality, and "view poverty with unprejudiced eyes."

Information technology may exist true, says Seneca, that by being exiled he has been deprived of his country, his friends and family, and his belongings, only he has taken with him into exile the things that affair most: his place in Nature and his virtue. He adds, "It is the heed that makes us rich; this goes with us into exile, and in the wildest wilderness, having found there all that the trunk needs for its sustenance, it itself overflows in the enjoyment of its own goods."4 Seneca apparently spent his time in exile reading, writing, and studying nature.

To suffer and even thrive in exile, Musonius says, a person must continue in mind that his happiness depends more than on his values than on where he resides.

Progressing with Stoicism

Another sign of progress in our practice of Stoicism is that our philosophy volition consist of actions rather than words. What matters most, says Epictetus, is not our ability to spout Stoic principles but our ability to live in accordance with them. Thus, at a banquet a Stoic novice might spend her time talking about what a philosophically enlightened individual should consume; a Stoic further along in her practice will simply eat that mode. Similarly, a Stoic novice might boast of her elementary lifestyle or of giving upward vino in favor of water; a more advanced Stoic, having adopted a simple lifestyle and having given upwardly wine in favor of water, will experience no need to comment on the fact. Indeed, Epictetus thinks that in our practise of Stoicism, we should be so camouflaged that others don't label us Stoics—or even label us philosophers.

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