A Guide To The Good Life – by William B Irvine

A Guide To The Good Life is a really good, simple, easy-to-understand summary of all of the not-so-easy-to-understand Stoic texts. It gives you a good break down of the philosophy of stoicism. Some of our favorite principles and techniques included negative visualization, the trichotomy of control and self-denial, and how you apply those to aspects of your life, such as your social relationships, insults, grief, and your personal values.

Well worth the read if you’re looking for a new operating system or a new way to look at life.

“The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy”

A Guide To The Good Life (dot point) Summary

The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Introduction: A Plan for Living

What do you want out of life? You might say car, job, spouse etc but these are the things in your life… In asking what you want out of life, he is referring to your grand goal in living

Many people haven’t asked this question.

The tragedy of No Philosophy

“Despite all of your activity, all the pleasant diversions you might have enjoyed while alive you will end up living a bad life…

There is a danger when you are on your death bead you will look back and realize you have wasted your chance at living, instead of pursuing something genuinely valuable, you squandered it because you allowed yourself to be distracted by the various baubles life has to offer”

A philosopher will help think about our goals in living and about which of these are worth pursuing.

The goal of stoicism is not to banish emotion but to banish negative emotions

Cost of having a philosophy and cost of not having a philosophy

The cost of not having a philosophy is: the danger that you will spend your days pursuing valueless things and will, therefore, waste your life

• Our evolutionary biology has made us seek out what feels good and avoid what feels bad, by doing this we will live a comfortable life or actually perhaps one filled with pleasure. Philosophy allows us to use reason to question this and turn our back on evolutionary programming in some instances

Part 2 Stoic Psychological Techniques

Ch4 – Negative visualization: what’s the worst that can happen?

Misfortune weighs most heavily upon those who expect nothing but good fortune.

“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 we desire… Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in this response to this boredom, we go on to form new even grander desires”

Hedonic Adaptation – psychologists Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein studies lottery winners

“Winning lottery usually allows people to live the life of his dreams. After the initial exhilaration, lottery winners end up about as happy as they previously were. They start taking their new Ferrari and mansion for granted, the way they previously took their rusted out pickup and cramped apartment for granted”

• Hedonic adaptation has the power to extinguish our enjoyment of the world
• Because of adaptation, we take everything for granted
• The problem is once you fulfill your desire for something, they adapt to its presence in their life and as a result stop desiring it, they end up just as dissatisfied as they were before fulfilling their desire
• Negative visualization reverses this adaptation process
• The easiest way to gain happiness is to want the things you already have
• Anticipate the events that cause us to grieve, realize that we have everything on ‘loan’ from fortune

Relationships

When enjoying the companionship of loved ones, periodically reflect on the possibility that this will come to an end

Your LIfe

The thing about your own death often. This will allow you to live more like as if each day were your last.

• Realizing we will not live forever will make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive

Transformation – (Catastrophic Induced)

As natural disasters and disease are tragic as they take things from us that we value, they have the power to transform us. Before a certain event we might be sleepwalking through life then subsequently wake up

• Catastrophic induced transformations have drawbacks

1. Cant count on a catastrophe
2. Can actually kill you

• Can wear off
• Negative visualization does not have these side effects so you don’t have to wait for the catastrophe

CH5 Dichotomy of Control

Epictetus says the most important choice of our life is whether to be concerned about things internal or external

Trichotomy of control

A i) Things we have complete control over, like our goals

Bi) Things we have no control over, the sun rising

C ii) Things we have some control over (whether we win playing tennis)

Important to set internal goals rather than external goals. Thus the goal in playing tennis should not be to win a match (external partial control) but to play to the best of your ability in the match

Ch6 Fatalism Letting go of the past and the present

Learned to love what fate has placed on us

Must learn to welcome whatever falls to our lot and persuade ourselves that whatever happens to us is for the best

“Don’t dwell on the past, but it is Ok to think about it to learn lesson

This Moment

” Marcus Aurelius says the only thing we own is this moment. We have an important choice with respect to it, whether we wish it was different or we enjoy it. ”

Stoics most of the time overachievers

Ch7 Self Denial On Dealing with the dark side of pleasure

“We should practice poverty”

“Inflicting these discomforts do not punish ourselves”

Benefits

• A person who periodically experiences minor discomforts will grow confident they can embrace major discomforts as well”
• Appreciate what we already have

Self Control important to acquire to obtain goals in life

– Forgoing pleasure, as it has a dark side

Ch10 Social Relations On Dealing With Other People

• When we befriend people with corrupt values they contaminate ours
• Seek people who are doing a better job than we are in following our values
• Be selective about which social functions to attend

Ch11 Insults

• If someone you don’t respect insults you, then you should feel good and respond “I am relieved you feel that way about me”
• Refusing to respond to the insult is one of the most effective responses possible. We are robbing him of the pleasure of having upset us, and he is likely to be upset as the result

Ch12 Grief

Ch 14 Personal Values – Seeking Fame

• Most people are convinced that obtaining fame/popularity will make them happy
• Stoics value freedom and are reluctant to give away their power. But if we seek social status we let people have power over us

Why many want you to fail

• Realize that many of your family and friends want you to fail in your undertakings. They will not tell it to your face but this doesn’t mean they aren’t silently rooting against you
• These people will always be skeptical of your ambitions finding reasons why you will fail
• They will invite you later to sit on the couch with them and mock all the people out there trying to pursue their dreams with the possibility of failure

Ch15 Personal Values On Luxurious Living/Seeking Wealth

• Not needing wealth is more valuable than wealth itself
• If we expose ourselves to the luxurious lifestyle, we lose our ability to take delight in the simplest things

How much wealth to acquire?

• ” amount that does not descent to poverty and that is not far removed from poverty”
• Lao Tzu observed “he who knows contentment is rich”

Ch 21 Stoicism Reconsidered

• Our evolutionary biology has made us insatiable
• Instead of wanting what we already have, we work our ass off to gain things we want to have thought once we have them we will enjoy them and search no further
• Living in accordance with your evolutionary biology allowed our ancestors to survive and reproduce – but can result in modern humans living miserable lives, by misusing our reasoning ability.
• Most people spend their days on evolutionary autopilot. Looking for sex, consuming a big meal and avoiding punishments

Ch22 Practicing Stoicism

• Insult connoisseur
• “Compared to the banjo recital, this new challenge is nothing”

Two Selves

The battle between two selves.

• One is on evolutionary autopilot… Wants nothing more than to be comfortable and lacks self-discipline and will take the path of least resistance. Rather than a simple-minded pleasure seeker, he is also a coward… He is not my friend
• I must establish dominance over him.. TO do this I must cause him to experience discomfort he could have easily avoided and I must prevent him from experiencing pleasures.

Rolex Watch

• There was a time when I would understand why someone would want a Rolex. But now such behavior puzzles me. I used to have less money than I knew what to do with, this is no longer the case, as there are not many things I want to buy
• So many people are in deep financial trouble with credit debt
• The rush of buying something contributes to long-term happiness much like a heroin addict takes a hit for long-term happiness.
• Because of stoicism, he will be unable to cross into the mindless consumerism that he once found entertaining