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February 20 - April 5, 2020
areté: “Expressing the highest version of yourself moment to moment to moment.”
Think of areté or virtue as a form of wisdom or strength that helps you do the appropriate thing at all times, so that your actions are in harmony with your highest self—courageous, disciplined, and kind for example. Virtue is what helps you close the gap between what you’re actually doing and what you’re capable of.
If we want to be the best we can be in every situation, if we want to live with areté, then we need to be aware of our every step. Today, we call this “mindfulness,” the Stoics used the term “attention” (prosochê). In the words of Marcus Aurelius, we should pay “vigorous attention . . . to the performance of the task in hand with precise analysis, with unaffected dignity, with human sympathy, with dispassionate justice.” We can achieve such a mind free of other thoughts by performing “each action as if it were the last of your life.”
You should act virtuously because it’s the right thing to do and not because it will benefit you in some way or another.
What is it then that we have control over? Only a few things—our voluntary judgments and actions. We can decide what events mean to us and how we want to react to them
the root cause of emotional suffering comes from worrying about things outside our control. This is why we should focus on the process; the process is fully under our control. And if we define success as giving our best in the process, then we cannot fail, feel calmly confident, and can accept any outcome with equanimity.
“Suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens,” explains Dan Millman in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Events can give us physical pain, but suffering and inner disturbance only come from resisting what is, from fighting with reality.
Because a warrior takes everything as a challenge to become their best, while an ordinary person just takes everything either as a blessing or curse.
Good things: All that is virtue; wisdom, justice, courage, self-discipline. Bad things: All that is vice; folly, injustice, cowardice, intemperance. Indifferent things: Everything else; life & death, health & sickness, wealth & poverty, pleasure & pain, reputation & bad repute.
We must make sure that our happiness depends as little as possible on outside circumstances. There should be only a loose connection between what happens to us and how happy we are. That’s possible by focusing on what we control and trying to make the best with the given circumstances. And also by wanting only what is within our power, because as learned earlier, desiring what’s not within our power is the root cause of emotional suffering.
We don’t control what happens in the world around us, but we do have the power to control our opinions about these events. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them,” as Epictetus tells us. We must realize that external events are neutral, and only how we choose to react to them makes them good or bad.
The idea is to choose your best virtuous response rather than going with the default. In order to do that, you need to be able to spot your automatic impression (it’s really bad) in the first place. If you want to get in the gap and choose your response, you need the awareness to spot the first impression that arises in the form of thoughts and/or emotions. Once you see this first impression, you can step back, and question whether this impression is good to go with or not. You can look at this thought impression as a mere hypothesis up for debate before you examine it rationally.
We must keep in mind that happiness depends more on what we make of what happens rather than what happens in the first place. No matter what happens to you, your mind is always available to turn it into good fortune by responding with virtue.
Even if you don’t control these immediate reflexive reactions, you have the power to control what comes next: go along with the impression or step back, evaluate the situation, and choose a response consistent with your values.
The first lesson, then, is to never blame other people or outside events for whatever negative emotions we’re feeling. Take responsibility.
“As it is we are glib and fluent in the lecture-room, and if any paltry question arises about a point of conduct, we are capable of pursuing the subject logically; but put us to the practical test and you will find us miserable shipwrecks.” – Epictetus
And the most important prerequisite is to be aware of what’s going on. Because Stoic philosophy is a lot about how we react to what happens in the world around us. What happens doesn’t matter because it’s beyond our control. What matters is how we deal with it. In order to deal with what happens effectively and to be mindful of our reactions, we need to be aware of what’s going on. We need to be able to step in between stimulus and response. We need to be able to not go with our impulses, but take a step back and look at the situation objectively.
Our voluntary thoughts and actions are by definition the only things within our control. And they only exist in the here and now. We can’t choose an action if we’re lost in thought, ruminating in the past, or dreaming about the future.
Accept rather than fight every little thing that happens. We heard about Stoic acceptance in Chapter 3. If we resist reality, if we think things are going against us, if we fight with what is, then we will suffer. Therefore, we should not wish for reality to be different, but accept it as it is.
This is a bulletproof way to maintain your confidence: (1) you try your best to succeed, (2) you know that the results are out of your control, (3) you’re prepared to accept success and failure equally, and (4) you continue to live with areté, moment to moment.
In Stoicism, that’s always a chance to practice some virtue: courage, humility, reason, justice, patience, self-discipline, and forgiveness. Nothing can prevent us from doing this. Virtue is always within our control, it’s always possible to respond with virtue to any given situation. What stands in the way becomes the way. Just another chance to practice being the best you can be.
“If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.”
Let’s appreciate what we have now because it might be gone tomorrow. Life is impermanent.
Keep in mind that you are lucky to be able to enjoy the things you have, and that your enjoyment might end abruptly, and that you might never be able to enjoy those things again. Learn to enjoy stuff and people without feeling entitled to them, without clinging.
The next time you say goodbye to a loved one, silently remind yourself that this might be your final parting. You’ll be less attached to them and if you see them again, you’ll appreciate it much more.
“Think of yourself as dead,” says Marcus Aurelius, “you have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live properly.”
In the end, we come with nothing, and go with nothing.
Think of this thought training as foresight. Before you go out and do something, ask yourself: What could go wrong? What obstacle could pop up? Where could I face difficulties? That’s emotional resilience training. You prepare yourself to face tough situations beforehand, when things are good, so that you’ll be ready when things turn bad.
Attention: The term “negative visualization” can be misleading. As learned in the second corner of the Stoic Happiness Triangle, external things are neither good nor bad, but indifferent. That’s actually the basis of this Stoic practice—no external misfortune can truly be bad because it’s outside our control. Only our reaction to it can be good or bad, and that’s what we train for, to be able to react well, with virtue.
Remember what Epictetus says, that you must undergo hard winter training to become who you want to be. Train now when it’s still easy, and you’ll be prepared for when it gets tough.
“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil.” – Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius proposes to remind yourself in the morning “of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
Morning preparation is crucial if you want to keep your calm and express your highest self even in the midst of a storm.
Rehearse your day in the morning, review your progress in the evening. At the end of each day, sit down with your journal and review: What did you do? What did you well? What not so well? How could you improve?
Attention, as the Stoics call it, is a prerequisite to practice Stoicism. If you want to express your highest self at all times, you must be aware of your actions. Otherwise you might slip and fall into reactivity. And you essentially give up being a philosopher because you don’t know what you do. You are mindless.
“’We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.’
“Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’ But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.” – Marcus Aurelius
Let’s be indifferent to what others think of us. Let’s be as dismissive of their approval as we are of their disapproval. And let’s focus on where our power lies—our well-intended actions. Doing the right thing is its own reward. Let’s find satisfaction in that.
Let’s keep in mind that living by values such as mutual respect, trustworthiness, and self-control are more valuable than wealth or external success. We should never compromise our character to become wealthy. Being a good person is the highest good there is. And it’s all that’s needed to live a happy and fulfilling life.
We need to set priorities and spend the lion’s share of our time on what matters. We need to say no to nonessential things. We must give up things we’ve been doing for a long time, unaware that they don’t matter much. Just because we’ve been doing something for all our life doesn’t mean we need it. Hear out Seneca: “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them . . . One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others;
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“Make sure you enjoy your relaxation like a poet—not idly but actively, observing the world around you, taking it all in, better understanding your place in the universe,” as Ryan Holiday puts it. “Take a day off from work every now and then, but not a day off from learning.”
1. Be humble: As Epictetus teaches us, “It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” And Marcus adds, “If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it—for I seek the truth.” 2. Put it into practice: Don’t be satisfied with mere learning, Epictetus warns us, “For as time passes we forget and end up doing the opposite.” As warriors of the mind, we must go out and actually live out what we’ve learned.
The Stoics say it’s not about the years you live, but about how you live those years. As Cato the Younger put it beautifully: “The value of good health is judged by its duration, the value of virtue is judged by its ripeness.” “It’s possible,” Seneca adds, “for a person who has had a long life to have lived too little.”
Let’s make sure we spend our time wisely so that we can look back with a content smile rather than a regretful sigh.
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life,” Seneca says, “it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours . . . The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
They know they’re responsible for their own flourishing and choose to suffer a little every day rather than a lot whenever they realize they’re not making any progress whatsoever. That’s self-discipline. That’s dealing effectively with the negative feelings trying to hold us back.
“If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.” – Marcus Aurelius You are disturbed not by what happens, but by your opinion about it.
It’s your reaction that shows whether you’ve been harmed or not. As Marcus Aurelius puts it: “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.”
Some grief is required. Proper grief according to Seneca is when our reason “will maintain a mean which will copy neither indifference nor madness, and will keep us in the state that is the mark of an affectionate, and not an unbalanced, mind.” We should let the tears flow, but let them also cease. And we can sigh deeply as long as we stop at some point. Because at some point the consequences of grief are more harmful than what aroused it in the first place, says Marcus Aurelius.
For example, the person you grieve over, would she have wanted you to be tortured with tears? If yes, then she’s not worthy of your tears and you should stop crying. If no, and if you love and respect her, then you should stop crying.
