A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

by William B. Irvine

The Stoics, however, would remind us that negative visualization, besides making us appreciate what we have, can help us avoid clinging to the things we appreciate.

It is curious, but my competitors in a race are simultaneously my teammates in the much more important competition against my other self. By racing against each other, we are all simultaneously racing against ourselves, although not all of us are consciously aware of doing so. To race against each other, we must individually overcome ourselves—our fears, our laziness, our lack of self-discipline. And it is entirely possible for someone to lose the competition against the other rowers—indeed, to come in last—but in the process of doing so to have triumphed in the competition against his other self.

Cato, as we have seen, dressed differently as a kind of training exercise: He wanted to teach himself “to be ashamed only of what was really shameful.” He therefore went out of his way to do things that would trigger inappropriate feelings of shame in himself, simply so he could practice overcoming such feelings. I have lately been trying to emulate Cato in this respect.

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.

I have become dysfunctional as a consumer. When I go to a mall, for example, I don’t buy things; instead, I look around me and am astonished by all the things for sale that I not only don’t need but can’t imagine myself wanting.