A Guide to the Good Life : The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Stoics fell somewhere between the Cyrenaics and the Cynics: They thought people should enjoy the good things life has to offer, including friendship and wealth, but only if they did not cling to these good things. Indeed, they thought we should periodically interrupt our enjoyment of what life has to offer to spend time contemplating the loss of whatever it is we are enjoying.
    Affiliating oneself with a school of philosophy was a serious business. According to the historian Simon Price, “Adherence to a philosophical sect was not simply a matter for the mind, or the result of mere intellectual fashion. Those who took their philosophy seriously attempted to live that philosophy from day to day.” 8 And just as a modern individual’s religion can become the key element of his personal identity—think of a born-again Christian—an ancient Greek’s or Roman’s philosophical association became an important part of who he was. According to the historian Paul Veyne, “To truly be a philosopher was to live out the sect’s doctrine, conform one’s conduct (and even one’s attire) to it, and if need be, to die for it.” 9
    R EADERS OF THIS BOOK should therefore keep in mind that although I am advocating Stoicism as a philosophy of life, it isn’t the only option available to those seeking such a philosophy. Furthermore, although the Stoics thought they could prove that theirs was the correct philosophy of life, I don’t (as we shall see in chapter 21 ) think such a proof is possible. Instead, I think that which philosophy of life a person should choose depends on her personality and circumstances.
    But having made this admission, let me add that I think there are very many people whose personality and circumstances make them wonderful candidates for the practice of Stoicism. Furthermore, whatever philosophy of life a person ends up adopting, she will probably have a better life than if she tried to live—as many people do—without a coherent philosophy of life.

PART TWO

Stoic Psychological Techniques

FOUR
Negative Visualization
     
    What’s the Worst That Can Happen?
     
    A NY THOUGHTFUL PERSON will periodically contemplate the bad things that can happen to him. The obvious reason for doing this is to prevent those things from happening. Someone might, for example, spend time thinking about ways people could break into his home so he can prevent them from doing so. Or he might spend time thinking about the diseases that might afflict him so he can take preventive measures.
    But no matter how hard we try to prevent bad things from happening to us, some will happen anyway. Seneca therefore points to a second reason for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us. If we think about these things, we will lessen their impact on us when, despite our efforts at prevention, they happen: “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.” 1 Misfortune weighs most heavily, he says, on those who “expect nothing but good fortune.” 2 Epictetus echoes this advice: We should keep in mind that “all things everywhere are perishable.” If we fail to recognize this and instead go around assuming that we will always be able to enjoy the things we value, we will likely find ourselves subject to considerable distress when the things we value are taken from us. 3
    Besides these reasons for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us, there is a third and arguably much more important reason. We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.
    The psychologists Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein have studied this phenomenon and given it a name:
hedonic adaptation
. To illustrate the adaptation process, they point to studies of lottery winners.