Below are my favorite excerpts from the book “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” featuring timeless pieces of advice from popular Stoics. I specifically handpicked the lessons which reflect my ways and/or share a similar mindset. Here you go -
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How to react to insults
A humorous response to an insult is good since it shows that you don’t take the insulter seriously but refusing to respond to an insult is the most effective. It makes it look as if you are indifferent to the existence of the insulter: Not only don’t you take him seriously, but you don’t take him at all. No one wants to be ignored and the insulter is likely to feel humiliated by your failure to respond to him—not with a counter-insult, not even with humor. Seneca, points out, a nonresponse can be quite disconcerting to the insulter, who will wonder whether or not you understood his insult. Furthermore, you are robbing him of the pleasure of having upset you, and he is likely to be upset as a result.
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On Anger Avoidance
Marcus, recommends that we contemplate the impermanence of the world around us - that everything we have is on loan including our loved ones and that they could be taken from us anytime without any advance notice. If we do this, he says, we will realize that many of the things we think are important in fact aren’t important, at least not in the grand scheme of things.
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On Fame
Fame, whether it involves world renown or merely the admiration of their neighbors, comes at a price. Stoics claim that the price of fame is sufficiently high that it far outweighs any benefits fame can confer on us.
Stoics value freedom and are therefore reluctant to do anything that will give others power over them. When you seek social status, you give other people power over you coz you have to do things calculated to make them admire you, and you have to refrain from doing things that will trigger their disfavor. Epictetus advises us not to seek social status since if you make it your goal to please others, you will no longer be free to please yourself. You will, he says, have enslaved yourself.
Epictetus further advises if you wish to retain your freedom, you should be indifferent to what they think of you. Be as dismissive of their approval as you are of their disapproval. Epictetus says that when others praise you, the proper response is to laugh at them.
Another Stoic, Marcus, also offers some words of advice to those who value what many would take to be the ultimate form of fame: immortal fame. Such fame, Marcus says is “an empty, hollow thing.” After all, think about how foolish it is to want to be remembered after we die. For one thing, since you are dead, you will not be able to enjoy our fame. For another, we are foolish to think that future generations will praise you, without even having met you, when you find it so difficult to praise your contemporaries, even though you meet them routinely. Instead of thinking about future fame, Marcus says, you would do well to concern yourselves with your present situation; you should, he advises, “make the best of today.”
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On possessing wealth
Seneca reminds us how small our bodies are and poses this question: “Is it not madness and the wildest lunacy to desire so much when you can hold so little?”
Musonius agrees with this assessment. Possessing wealth, he observes, won’t enable us to live without sorrow and won’t console us in our old age. And although wealth can procure for us physical luxuries and various pleasures of the senses, it can never bring us contentment or banish our grief.
Along similar lines, Epictetus asserts that “it is better to die of hunger with distress and fear gone than to live upset in the midst of plenty.” More generally, he argues that not needing wealth is more valuable than wealth itself is.
Most people use their wealth to finance a luxurious lifestyle, one that will win them the admiration of others. But such a lifestyle, the Stoics argued, is counterproductive if our goal is not to live well but to have a good life. Consider, for example, the extravagant meals associated with luxurious living. Do those who eat such meals experience more pleasure than those whose diets are simple? Musonius doesn’t think so.
There is indeed a danger that if we are exposed to a luxurious lifestyle, we will lose our ability to take delight in simple things. The author, Irvine, simply puts it this way - if at one time, we might have been able to savor a bowl of macaroni and cheese, accompanied by a glass of milk, but after living in luxury for a few months we might find that macaroni no longer appeals to our discriminating palate; we might start rejecting it in favor of fettuccine Alfredo, accompanied by a particular brand of bottled water.
When, as the result of being exposed to luxurious living, people become hard to please, a curious thing happens. Rather than mourning the loss of their ability to enjoy simple things, they take pride in their newly gained inability to enjoy anything but “the best.” The Stoics, however, would pity these individuals. They would point out that by undermining their ability to enjoy simple, easily obtainable things—bowls of macaroni and cheese, for example—these individuals have seriously impaired their ability to enjoy life.
Indeed, the Stoics value highly their ability to enjoy ordinary life—and indeed, their ability to find sources of delight even when living in primitive conditions.
Being able to enjoy simple, obtainable things is so me. I think I'm an extreme case coz I could, for example, eat the same food every week (even every day) and funnily, still have the same excited reaction each time. And I'm not even referring to gourmet foods served in restaurants, but only regular dishes prepared at home. 😂
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On food, clothing and shelter
Musonius advises us that when we eat, we should choose food “not for pleasure but for nourishment, not to please our palate but to strengthen our body.” He recommends us to follow the example set by Socrates: Rather than living to eat—rather than spending our life pursuing the pleasure to be derived from food—we should eat to live.
In the same way that we should favor a simple diet, Stoics also advise that we should favor simple clothing, housing, and furnishings. Musonius, for example, advises us to dress to protect our bodies, not to impress other people. Likewise, our housing should be functional: It should do little more than keep out extreme heat and cold, and shelter us from the sun and wind.
He reminds us that houses with courtyards, fancy color schemes, and gilded ceilings are hard to maintain. Furthermore, our simple house should be furnished simply. Its kitchen should be supplied with earthenware and iron vessels rather than those made of silver and gold; besides being cheaper, Musonius observes, such vessels are easier to cook with and less likely to be stolen.
Stoic philosophy “calls for plain living, but not for penance.” More generally, it is perfectly acceptable, says Seneca, for a Stoic to acquire wealth, as long as he does not harm others to obtain it. It is also acceptable for a Stoic to enjoy wealth, as long as he is careful not to cling to it. The idea is that it is possible to enjoy something and at the same time be indifferent to it.
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On raising kids
The Stoics, while doing their social duties, will not think in terms of sacrifice. For example, think about the duties involved in parenting. Parents do lots of things for their children, but Stoic parents—and good parents in general—don’t think of parenting as a burdensome task requiring endless sacrifice; instead, they think about how wonderful it is that they have children and can make a positive difference in the lives of these children.
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On experiencing misfortune
Stoics don’t think it is helpful for people to consider themselves victims of society—or victims of anything else, for that matter. If you consider yourself a victim, you are not going to have a good life; if, however, you refuse to think of yourself as a victim—if you refuse to let your inner self be conquered by your external circumstances—you are likely to have a good life, no matter what turn your external circumstances take.
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On growing old
When we were young, we might have wondered what it would be like to be old. If you are a Stoic, you might, in your practice of negative visualization, have imagined what it would be like.
Unless death comes early, the day will come when one doesn't need to wonder or imagine what it would be like to be old coz one day, we'll experience it. The abilities we once took for granted will have departed. We used to run for miles; now we get winded walking down the hallway. We used to handle the finances of a corporation; now we can’t even balance our checkbook. We used to be the person who knew when everyone’s birthday was; now we can’t even remember our own.
The loss of these abilities means you can no longer fend for yourselves, and as a result you might find yourselves banished to a nursing home or dependent on the care of loved ones. You might also find that despite having enjoyed a high degree of social status in your prime, you are now low man on the nursing home’s status totem pole. Learning about the deaths of long-time friends, brothers and sisters, and perhaps even your own children is normal news.
Old age, Seneca argues, has its benefits: “Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it.” Seneca claims that the most delightful time of life is “when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline.” He adds that even the time of “abrupt decline” has pleasures of its own. Most significantly, as one loses the ability to experience certain pleasures, one loses the desire to experience them: “How comforting it is,” he says, “to have tired out one’s appetites, and to have done with them!”
It is entirely possible for an octogenarian to be more joyful than her twenty-year-old grandchild, particularly if the octogenarian, in part because of her failing health, takes nothing for granted, while the grandchild, in part because of her perfect health, takes everything for granted and has therefore decided that life is a bore.
Could you believe that the lessons above were given more than 1,700 years ago? Amazing, right? :)
Anyway, as final words of wisdom, let me leave you with the author's words:
There was a time when I would have understood why someone would want to own a Rolex watch; now such behavior puzzles me. I used to have less money than I knew what to do with; this is no longer the case, in large part because I want so few of the things that money can buy. What brought about this state of affairs? The profound realization, thanks to the practice of Stoicism, that acquiring the things that those in my social circle typically crave and work hard to afford will, in the long run, make zero difference in how happy I am and will in no way contribute to my having a good life.
