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

by William B. Irvine

Most significantly, since nature intended us to be social creatures, we have duties to our fellow men. We should, for example, honor our parents, be agreeable to our friends, and be concerned with the interests of our countrymen.19 It was this sense of social duty that led the Stoic Cato to be an active player in Roman politics, even though doing so cost him his life.

They asserted, for example, that Stoic philosophy is like a fertile field, with “Logic being the encircling fence, Ethics the crop, Physics the soil.”20 This metaphor makes clear the central role played by ethics in their philosophy: Why worry about the soil and why build a fence unless a crop will result?

Seneca was the best writer of the bunch, and his essays and letters to Lucilius form a quite accessible introduction to Roman Stoicism. Musonius is notable for his pragmatism: He offered detailed advice on how practicing Stoics should eat, what they should wear, how they should behave toward their parents, and even how they should conduct their sex life. Epictetus’s specialty was analysis: He explained, among other things, why practicing Stoicism can bring us tranquility. Finally, in Marcus’s Meditations, written as a kind of diary, we are privy to the thoughts of a practicing Stoic: We watch as he searches for Stoic solutions to the problems of daily life as well as the problems he encountered as emperor of Rome.

By internalizing his goals in daily life, the Stoic is able to preserve his tranquility while dealing with things over which he has only partial control.

“What ailment of yours have you cured today? What failing have you resisted? Where can you show improvement?”

SOMETHING ELSE we can do during our Stoic meditations is judge our progress as Stoics.

our practice of Stoicism has made us susceptible to little outbursts of joy: We will, out of the blue, feel delighted to be the person we are, living the life we are living, in the universe we happen to inhabit.

“every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes.”10

lessen the negative impact other people have on our life by controlling our thoughts about them. He counsels us, for example, not to waste time speculating about what our neighbors are doing, saying, thinking, or scheming.

A good Stoic, Marcus says, will not think about what other people are thinking except when he must do so in order to serve the public interest.

“the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man.”20 (The

To endure and even thrive in exile, Musonius says, a person must keep in mind that his happiness depends more on his values than on where he resides.

“to have whatsoever he wishes is in no man’s power,” it is in every man’s power “not to wish for what he has not, but cheerfully to employ what comes to him.”

enjoy being the person they are, living the life they are living, in the universe they happen to inhabit.

the first step in transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances.

our best hope at gaining happiness is to live not a life of self-indulgence but a life of self-discipline and, to a degree, self-sacrifice.

at any rate, a part of me—as an opponent in a kind of game. This opponent—my “other self,” as it were—is on evolutionary autopilot: He wants nothing more than to be comfortable and to take advantage of whatever opportunities for pleasure present themselves. My other self lacks self-discipline; left to his own devices, he will always take the path of least resistance through life and as a result will be little more than a simple-minded pleasure seeker. He is also a coward. My other self is not my friend; to the contrary, he is best regarded, in the words of Epictetus, “as an enemy lying in wait.”4

Many of these individuals, one suspects, would be affluent rather than bankrupt—and far happier as well—if only they had developed their capacity to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

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.