A Guide to the Good Life

11

Artsy Shot: Lake Wobegon (© Alexander Weis Photography)

 

Date first published: November 22, 2020
Date last edited: November 22, 2020
Estimated reading time: 7 min

 

[NB: This is my personal summary of the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine; that is, if you have not read the actual book, parts of this summary might be incomprehensible, confusing, disturbing or even fatal, which is why I highly recommend reading the book in full to everyone.]

 

About the Book (borrowed from Amazon.de)

One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.

In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable first-hand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus our efforts on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have.

Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows readers how to become thoughtful observers of their own lives. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain in our life. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life.

 

Stoic Psychological Techniques

Negative Visualization – What’s the worst that can happen?

Take yourself some time to contemplate in regular intervals on what you have and how life would feel if these things would be taken from you. The idea behind this is that everything will be taken from you at some point (the latest by the time of your death) and by contemplating this you stop taking things for granted and start enjoying what you already have a lot more. Also, this will help you not get stuck in minor nuisances in life that are actually meaningless but make you feel miserable so often. To-Do: Jot down an actual list of things that are worth to be contemplated on a regular basis and the list should not only include obvious stuff such as eyesight but also the small things in life.

 

The Trichotomy of Control – On becoming invincible

There are things you cannot control, things you can control and things you can control to some extent but not completely. Things you can control you should control for obvious reasons. Things you cannot control you should practice not to worry about at all as it is nothing but a waste of time and energy. Things you can control to some extent should be internalized by focussing on their outcome only, that is you should do what you can do about them in order to achieve the desired results and then just let go. In other words: You don’t have to win a tennis match as long as you give your best, which is something that you have full control of.

 

Fatalism – Letting go of the past and the present

The future is not deterministic as you can take actions to shape it. So, in order to achieve your goals, you need to get stuff done. The past, in contrast, should be regarded deterministic even if bad things might have happened to you or you did something stupid because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it any longer. The exact same goes for the present. By embracing this way of thinking, you can stop the what-if thinking and accept what had been but is no longer; refuse to think about how it could be better. If you don’t keep that in mind, you will go on being frustrated and unhappy because you will never be able to find satisfaction by definition.

 

Self-Denial – on dealing with the dark side of pleasure

In order to become more satisfied, practice poverty, that is expose yourself to situations that remind you how happy you should be about certain things that you take for granted such as a jacket in winter or food when you are hungry. To-Do: Jot down an actual list of things you take for granted and get to work. (This can be seen as living negative visualization.)

 

Meditation – Watching ourselves practicing stoicism

Stoic meditation is different from buddhist meditation in that you don’t have to sit around and empty your mind but while lying in bed, let your day pass and thing about your day and what you could have done differently. This can help you become a stoic.

 

Stoic Advice

Social Relations

Make friends only with people who share your values and take part in discussions only if they are in line with your values. When dealing with people you find annoying, pause and realize that this makes things only worse. Instead of becoming annoyed, contemplate on how small the effect of that person annoying you is going to be on your life as a whole.

Sex is nasty stuff because sexual desire can destroy lives, so find someone to marry and stay the course as it’s the duty of two spouses to care for each other. For a stoic, the greatest thing in life is so have a loving spouse and children together. Whenever you feel sexually attracted to someone who is not your (soon-to-be) spouse, simply imagine a bunch of unsexy stuff about them and you should be fine (lol).

 

Insults – on putting up with put-downs

Do not care about what others say or think about you. When someone you respect insults you, you should actually be even thankful for the insult because it can be helpful and if you don’t respect the insulting source, they deserve your pity as they have a deeply flawed character. When insulted, what upsets you is not the insult itself but your own judgement about it. When confronted with an insult, either respond with humor as this shows that you don’t take it seriously or don’t respond at all, which makes the insulter look stupid.

 

Grief – on vanishing tears with reason

Stoics feel grieve just like they feel pain when you hit them. When something bad happens to you as losing a loved one, you may cry your heart out but your tears have to stop at some point after which it would be considered madness. Grieve and once you’re done with it be done. In order to overcome grieve, apply negative visualization the other way around: Imagine how the person you lost made your life better and how much worse it would have been without them. Also, remind yourself that they wouldn’t want you to live in grief any longer and if they would, they’re not worth it in the first place.

 

Anger – on overcoming anti-joy

Becoming angry destroys your tranquility and ruins your day, so in order to prevent anger, keep in mind that things that anger you don’t actually do you any real harm but are just mere annoyances in the infinite universe.

 

Personal Values – on seeking fame

Fame comes at a price too high to be paid. By becoming indifferent to other people’s opinions, you immensely improve the quality of your life. In order to impress someone, you have to follow their notion of values, so why would you wanna do that in the first place?

 

Personal Values – on luxurious living

Not needing wealth is more valuable than wealth itself because we only seek it to buy things that will win us the admiration of others, which is some kind of fame. Make sure you do not become accustomed to connoisseurship because by doing so we will unlearn to praise the simple things. By craving for luxury you will only end up wanting even more fancy stuff. It’s not a bad thing to be rich or famous but you should not aim for these things and you should not mind if they are ever taken away from you.

 

Dying – on a good end to a good life

Stoics don’t mind dying because they got everything out of their lives they could.

 

On Becoming a Stoic – start now and prepare to be mocked

Life in general is much easier if you follow some philosophy guiding you in some direction for without one you sometimes don’t even know what it is you want.

Keep your newly found stoic lifestyle low profile because resistance makes it unnecessarily complicated.

The rewards for practicing stoicism will be fewer negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, grief and disappointment thanks to a state of tranquility. You will experience one particular emotion: delight around the world around you. 💫

Disclaimer

Alle Informationen, Zahlen und Aussagen in diesem Artikel dienen lediglich illustrativen und didaktischen Zwecken. Der Artikel richtet sich an die allgemeine Öffentlichkeit, nicht jedoch an einen einzelnen oder an einzelne Anleger, auch nicht an die existierenden oder künftigen Mandanten von Alexander Weis im Besonderen. Unter keinen Umständen sollte diese Artikel oder die darin enthaltenen Informationen als Finanzberatung, Investitionsempfehlung oder Angebot im Sinne des deutschen Wertpapierhandelsgesetztes verstanden werden. Ob die Informationen in diesem Artikel korrekt sind, können wir nicht mit Gewissheit sagen, wenngleich wir uns bemüht haben, Fehler zu vermeiden. Historische Wertsteigerungen und Renditen bieten keinerlei Gewähr für zukünftig ähnliche Werte. Ein direktes Investment in die hier gezeigten Wertpapierindizes ist nicht möglich. Insbesondere enthält ein solcher Index keine Kosten und Steuern. Investieren in Bankguthaben, Wertpapiere, Investmentfonds, Immobilien und Rohstoffe bringt hohe Verlustrisiken mit sich, bis hin zum Risiko des Totalverlusts. Es ist möglich, dass die Investmenttechniken, die in diesem Dokument genannt werden, zu beträchtlichen Verlusten führen. Wir übernehmen keine Haftung für etwaige Schäden, die aus der Verwendung der in diesem Artikel enthaltenen Informationen resultieren. Dieser Artikel wird in weitgehend textgleicher Form auch auf verschiedenen Finanzportalen veröffentlicht.

What the fuck?

I invite you to come along and join me on my magical, mystical, irresistible, cosmical journey called life. ✨

Subscribe to my Newsletter