Part 1 takeaways
During the Greek & Roman times there was a more earnest focus among people of having a “philosophy of life” that ties together downstream life choices into a cohesive framework. There were many competing philosophies of life, taught by various “schools” and Stoicism is one that’s survived through the ages and is now seeing a bit of a revival. The Stoic philosophy recognizes the human instinct for more and the understanding that achieving more doesn’t bring contentment. Hedonic adaption. There seems to be overlap with buddhist teachings of ‘the middle way’ avoiding both excess and austerity. Matter of fact, a few other overlaps with buddhism: the world is transitory and thing are impermanent, we must master our own desire as much as possible, and that we should pursue tranquility (“a state marked by the absence of negative emotions such as anger, grief, anxiety, and fear, and the presence of positive emotions—in particular, joy.”)
Part 2 takeaways
Negative visualization. A key to happiness is forestalling the hedonic adaption process. We can do this by remembering that the things we care about can be taken from us, reminding us to appreciate them more in the moment. From time to time, let that “worst case” float around in your head for a bit rather than forcing it out. This is a powerful technique to steel oneself from the inevitable losses in life. Lest we grow too attached to the things and are unprepared when they’re suddenly taken from us, the stoics taught negative visualization so that we feel a little bit of that pain regularly, thereby preparing us for the eventual losses that do come.
- “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.”
- “[Epictetus] counsels us, for example, when we kiss our child, to remember that she is mortal and not something we own—that she has been given to us ‘for the present, not inseparably nor for ever.’”
- “Consider the person who has been reduced to possession of only a loincloth. His circumstances could be worse: He could lose the loincloth.”
- Is this like the darker version of gratitude journaling?
Negative visualization starts with recognizing that everything we have is a gift. The author explains that some people seem to figure out this tactic organically, looking at their circumstances not by what is lacking but by how much they’d miss losing what they have.
The idea is to seek satisfaction, which is most clearly gained by being satisfied with what one has.
“I would argue, though, that what is really foolish is to spend your life in a state of self-induced dissatisfaction when satisfaction lies within your grasp, if only you will change your mental outlook. To be able to be satisfied with little is not a failing, it is a blessing—if, at any rate, what you seek is satisfaction.”
When it comes to wealth and income, there’s a high variance. Years ago, when discussing amounts of money with others and finding that people measure from different scales, I realized that all outcomes are great when you start counting at zero. It’s only when the baseline is calibrated upward that $1,000, $10,000, or even $100,000 aren’t “a lot of money.” This was a healthy reminder to resume my long-ago practice of counting from $0 when appropriate.
We are living in our ancestors’ dream world! “Antibiotics, air conditioning, toilet paper(!), cell phones, television, windows, eyeglasses, and fresh fruit in January.”
Negative visualization can also be used in reverse, imagining the bad things that happen to us have happened to others:
“Suppose, he says, that our servant breaks a cup. We are likely to get angry and have our tranquility disrupted by the incident. One way to avert this anger is to think about how we would feel if the incident had happened to someone else instead. If we were at someone’s house and his servant broke a cup, we would be unlikely to get angry; indeed, we might try to calm our host by saying ‘It’s just a cup; these things happen.’”
Dichotomy of control. Things you can control & things you can’t control. If you can’t control, why worry? If you can control, why worry?
“Your primary desire, says Epictetus, should be your desire not to be frustrated by forming desires you won’t be able to fulfill.”
One thing I appreciate about this book is the author’s willingness to break with the Stoics of old in his analysis of stoic principles. Rather than strictly adhering to the dichotomy of control established by Epictetus, the author does his own analysis from first principles to arrive at a more nuanced view, and one which I prefer.
There’s a grey area, where you have some but not complete control. This is an expansion of the original dichotomy — the author calls it a “trichotomy.” Now, how do we level-set our attachment to things where we have influence but not control? There’s an example of a tennis match. We cannot control whether we win or lose the match, but we can control our level of preparation and training. We should be careful not to set goals that are outside of our control, lest the negative outcomes disappoint us. Instead, we should set goals that are internal & within our control — to play the match to the best of my ability. Other examples:
- Not a good goal: “I want my wife to love me” → Good goal: “behave in a lovable manner.”
- Not a good goal: “my boss gives me a promotion” → Good goal: “do my job to the best of my ability.”
- “These are goals I can achieve no matter how my wife and my boss subsequently react to my efforts.”
Within our complete control:
- the goals we set for ourselves
- our values
- our character: “We are, [Marcus] says, the only ones who can stop ourselves from attaining goodness and integrity.” Nothing stops us, “from cultivating a number of other qualities, including sincerity, dignity, industriousness, and sobriety.”
Fatalism. Wish things to happen as they do, instead of expecting them to happen as they wish. Being satisfied with whatever is going on, keeping our expectations in check.
Fatalism with respect to the future vs the past. Fatalism with respect to the future will sap motivation to do much of anything. However, if limited to the past,
“She will keep firmly in mind, when deciding what to do, that her actions can have no effect on the past. Such a person is unlikely to spend time and energy thinking about how the past might be different.”
Fatalism with respect to the present — this very moment:
“One of the things we’ve got, though, is this very moment, and we have an important choice with respect to it: We can either spend this moment wishing it could be different, or we can embrace this moment.”
Self-denial. Finding pleasure in denying oneself satisfaction helps us avoid excess and attachment to material things.
- Sometimes live as if bad things have happened to us: “practice poverty” instead of merely thinking about what it’d be like to lose our wealth.
- Level 1 (Seneca): do this to appreciate what you have
- Level 2 (Epicurus — not a stoic but a rival school): do this to figure out what you can, in fact, live without
- Level 3 (Musonius): cause bad things to actually happen. Experience discomfort that might easily be avoided (underdressing for cold weather, going shoeless, become thirsty or hungry despite available water/food)
- “The Stoics … welcomed a degree of discomfort in their life.”
- 3 benefits of voluntary discomfort (Musonius): we harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us; gain confidence that we can withstand major discomforts in the future; help us appreciate what we already have.
- Also forgo opportunities to experience pleasure because pleasure has a dark side.
Meditation. Different from how Buddhists think of it. “During his meditations, a Zen Buddhist might sit for hours with his mind as empty as he can make it. A Stoic’s mind, in contrast, will be quite active during a bedtime meditation.”
- Seneca advises that we “periodically meditate on the events of daily living, how we responded to these events, and how, in accordance with Stoic principles, we should have responded to them.”
- One of Seneca’s examples. He was too aggressive admonishing someone, so it merely annoyed the person rather than corrected their behavior. “When contemplating whether to criticize someone, he should consider not only whether the criticism is valid but also whether the person can stand to be criticized.”
Duty: on loving mankind. Humans are inherently a social species. We are rewarded by relationships. “On examining our life, we will find that other people are the source of some of the greatest delights life has to offer, including love and friendship.”
Social relations: on dealing with people. While we are rewarded by relationships, they come with all sorts of negative. This is something we must work to accept and understand. Marcus Aurelius had a quote:
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
Insults: on putting up with put-downs. Insults will surely come. Sometimes they’ll be direct and other times slight. Didn’t get invited to that dinner party? In any case letting the insulter determine your mood isn’t useful. One stoic dressed oddly to solicit insults so that he could practice stoic response. Self-deprecating humor and comments are effective.
Grief: on vanquishing tears with reason. Seneca advises Polybius to “let your tears flow, but let them also cease, let deepest sighs be drawn from your breast, but let them also find an end.”
Anger: on overcoming anti-joy.
“Seneca offers lots of specific advice on how to prevent anger. We should, he says, fight our tendency to believe the worst about others and our tendency to jump to conclusions about their motivations. We need to keep in mind that just because things don’t turn out the way we want them to, it doesn’t follow that someone has done us an injustice. In particular, says Seneca, we need to remember that in some cases, the person at whom we are angry in fact helped us; in such cases, what angers us is that he didn’t help us even more.”
“Suppose we find that despite our attempts to prevent anger, the behavior of other people succeeds in angering us. It will help us to overcome our anger, says Seneca, if we remind ourselves that our behavior also angers other people: ‘We are bad men living among bad men, and only one thing can calm us—we must agree to go easy on one another.’”
Personal values: on seeking fame.
“They fail to realize that fame, whether it involves world renown or merely the admiration of their neighbors, comes at a price. Indeed, the Stoics claim that the price of fame is sufficiently high that it far outweighs any benefits fame can confer on us.”
Personal values: on luxurious living.
“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. 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.”
Exile: on surviving a change of place. Seneca: “Exile, he explains, is nothing but a change of place. Furthermore, even in the worst places of exile, the exiled person will find people who are there of their own free will.”