A Guide to the Good Life

THE STOICS ARE NOT alone in harnessing the power of negative visualization. Consider, for example, those individuals who say grace before a meal. Some presumably say it because they are simply in the habit of doing so. Others might say it because they fear that God will punish them if they don’t. But understood properly, saying grace—and for that matter, offering any prayer of thanks—is a form of negative visualization. Before eating a meal, those saying grace pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that this food might not have been available to them, in which case they would have gone hungry. And even if the food were available, they might not have been able to share it with the people now at their dinner table. Said with these thoughts in mind, grace has the ability to transform an ordinary meal into a cause for celebration.

Negative visualization, in other words, teaches us to embrace whatever life we happen to be living and to extract every bit of delight we can from it. But it simultaneously teaches us to prepare ourselves for changes that will deprive us of the things that delight us. It teaches us, in other words, to enjoy what we have without clinging to it. This in turn means that by practicing negative visualization, we can not only increase our chances of experiencing joy but increase the chance that the joy we experience will be durable, that it will survive changes in our circumstances. Thus, by practicing negative visualization, we can hope to gain what Seneca took to be a primary benefit of Stoicism, namely, “a boundless joy that is firm and unalterable.”18

By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent. We will no longer sleepwalk through our life. Some people, I realize, will find it depressing or even morbid to contemplate impermanence. I am nevertheless convinced that the only way we can be truly alive is if we make it our business periodically to entertain such thoughts.

Your primary desire, says Epictetus, should be your desire not to be frustrated by forming desires you won’t be able to fulfill. Your other desires should conform to this desire, and if they don’t, you should do your best to extinguish them. If you succeed in doing this, you will no longer experience anxiety about whether or not you will get what you want; nor will you experience disappointment on not getting what you want. Indeed, says Epictetus, you will become invincible: If you refuse to enter contests that you are capable of losing, you will never lose a contest.5

REMEMBER THAT AMONG the things over which we have complete control are the goals we set for ourselves. I think that when a Stoic concerns himself with things over which he has some but not complete control, such as winning a tennis match, he will be very careful about the goals he sets for himself. In particular, he will be careful to set internal rather than external goals. Thus, his goal in playing tennis will not be to win a match (something external, over which he has only partial control) but to play to the best of his ability in the match (something internal, over which he has complete control). By choosing this goal, he will spare himself frustration or disappointment should he lose the match: Since it was not his goal to win the match, he will not have failed to attain his goal, as long as he played his best. His tranquility will not be disrupted. It is worth noting at this point that playing to the best of your ability in a tennis match and winning that match are causally connected. In particular, what better way is there to win a tennis match than by playing to the best of your ability? The Stoics realized that our internal goals will affect our external performance, but they also realized that the goals we consciously set for ourselves can have a dramatic impact on our subsequent emotional state. In particular, if we consciously set winning a tennis match as our goal, we arguably don’t increase our chances of winning that match. In fact, we might even hurt our chances: If it starts looking, early on, as though we are going to lose the match, we might become flustered, and this might negatively affect our playing in the remainder of the game, thereby hurting our chances of winning. Furthermore, by having winning the match as our goal, we dramatically increase our chances of being upset by the outcome of the match. If, on the other hand, we set playing our best in a match as our goal, we arguably don’t lessen our chances of winning the match, but we do lessen our chances of being upset by the outcome of the match. Thus, internalizing our goals with respect to tennis would appear to be a no-brainer: To set as our goal playing to the best of our ability has an upside—reduced emotional anguish in the future—with little or no downside.

When it comes to other, more significant aspects of his life, a Stoic will likewise be careful in the goals he sets for himself. Stoics would recommend, for example, that I concern myself with whether my wife loves me, even though this is something over which I have some but not complete control. But when I do concern myself with this, my goal should not be the external goal of making her love me; no matter how hard I try, I could fail to achieve this goal and would as a result be quite upset. Instead, my goal should be an internal goal: to behave, to the best of my ability, in a lovable manner. Similarly, my goal with respect to my boss should be to 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. 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.

A practicing Stoic will keep the trichotomy of control firmly in mind as he goes about his daily affairs. He will perform a kind of triage in which he sorts the elements of his life into three categories: those over which he has complete control, those over which he has no control at all, and those over which he has some but not complete control. The things in the second category—those over which he has no control at all—he will set aside as not worth worrying about. In doing this, he will spare himself a great deal of needless anxiety. He will instead concern himself with things over which he has complete control and things over which he has some but not complete control. And when he concerns himself with things in this last category, he will be careful to set internal rather than external goals for himself and will thereby avoid a considerable amount of frustration and disappointment.

BESIDES RECOMMENDING that we be fatalistic with respect to the past, the Stoics, I think, advocate fatalism with respect to the present. It is clear, after all, that we cannot, through our actions, affect the present, if by the present we mean this very moment. It may be possible for me to act in a way that affects what happens in a decade, a day, a minute, or even a half-second from now; it is impossible, however, for me to act in a way that alters what is happening right now, since as soon as I act to affect what is happening right now, that moment in time will have slipped into the past and therefore cannot be affected.

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. If we habitually do the former, we will spend much of our life in a state of dissatisfaction; if we habitually do the latter, we will enjoy our life. This, I think, is why the Stoics recommend that we be fatalistic with respect to the present. It is why Marcus reminds us that all we own is the present moment and why he advises us to live in “this fleeting instant.”

Notice that the advice that we be fatalistic with respect to the past and the present is consistent with the advice, offered in the preceding chapter, that we not concern ourselves with things over which we have no control. We have no control over the past; nor do we have any control over the present, if by the present we mean this very moment. Therefore, we are wasting our time if we worry about past or present events. Notice, too, that the advice that we be fatalistic with respect to the past and present is connected, in a curious way, to the advice that we practice negative visualization. In engaging in negative visualization, we think of the ways our situation could be worse, and our goal in doing so is to make us value whatever we have. The fatalism advocated by the Stoics is in a sense the reverse, or one might say the mirror image, of negative visualization: Instead of thinking about how our situation could be worse, we refuse to think about how it could be better. In behaving fatalistically with respect to the past and present, we refuse to compare our situation with alternative, preferable situations in which we might have found or might now find ourselves. By doing this, the Stoics think, we will make our current situation, whatever it may be, more tolerable.

To begin with, by undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort—by, for example, choosing to be cold and hungry when we could be warm and well fed—we harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us in the future. If all we know is comfort, we might be traumatized when we are forced to experience pain or discomfort, as we someday almost surely will. In other words, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as a kind of vaccine: By exposing ourselves to a small amount of a weakened virus now, we create in ourselves an immunity that will protect us from a debilitating illness in the future. Alternatively, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as an insurance premium which, if paid, makes us eligible for benefits: Should we later fall victim to a misfortune, the discomfort we experience then will be substantially less than it otherwise would have been. A second benefit of undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort comes not in the future but immediately. A person who periodically experiences minor discomforts will grow confident that he can withstand major discomforts as well, so the prospect of experiencing such discomforts at some future time will not, at present, be a source of anxiety for him. By experiencing minor discomforts, he is, says Musonius, training himself to be courageous.4 The person who, in contrast, is a stranger to discomfort, who has never been cold or hungry, might dread the possibility of someday being cold and hungry. Even though he is now physically comfortable, he will likely experience mental discomfort—namely, anxiety with respect to what the future holds in store for him. A third benefit of undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort is that it helps us appreciate what we already have. In particular, by purposely causing ourselves discomfort, we will better appreciate whatever comfort we experience. It is, of course, nice to be in a warm room when it is cold and blustery outside, but if we really want to enjoy that warmth and sense of shelter, we should go outside in the cold for a while and then come back in. Likewise, we can (as Diogenes observed) greatly enhance our appreciation of any meal by waiting until we are hungry before we eat it and greatly enhance our appreciation of any beverage by waiting until we are thirsty before we drink it.

They also counsel us to make a point of sometimes abstaining from other, relatively harmless pleasures. We might, for example, make a point of passing up an opportunity to drink wine—not because we fear becoming an alcoholic but so we can learn self-control. For the Stoics—and, indeed, for anyone attempting to practice a philosophy of life—self-control will be an important trait to acquire. After all, if we lack self-control, we are likely to be distracted by the various pleasures life has to offer, and in this distracted state we are unlikely to attain the goals of our philosophy of life.

cream). This makes it sound as if Stoics are antipleasure, but they aren’t. The Stoics see nothing wrong, for example, with enjoying the pleasures to be derived from friendship, family life, a meal, or even wealth, but they counsel us to be circumspect in our enjoyment of these things. There is, after all, a fine line between enjoying a meal and lapsing into gluttony. There is also a danger that we will cling to the things we enjoy. Consequently, even as we enjoy pleasant things, we should follow Epictetus’s advice and be on guard.8 Here is how, according to Seneca, a Stoic sage would explain the difference between the Stoic take on pleasure and that of the ordinary person: Whereas the ordinary person embraces pleasure, the sage enchains it; whereas the ordinary person thinks pleasure is the highest good, the sage doesn’t think it is even a good; and whereas the ordinary person does everything for the sake of pleasure, the sage does nothing.9

What Stoics discover, though, is that willpower is like muscle power: The more they exercise their muscles, the stronger they get, and the more they exercise their will, the stronger it gets. Indeed, by practicing Stoic self-denial techniques over a long period, Stoics can transform themselves into individuals remarkable for their courage and self-control. They will be able to do things that others dread doing, and they will be able to refrain from doing things that others cannot resist doing. They will, as a result, be thoroughly in control of themselves. This self-control makes it far more likely that they will attain the goals of their philosophy of life, and this in turn dramatically increases their chances of living a good life.

The Stoics will be the first to admit that it takes effort to exercise self-control. Having made this admission, though, they will point out that not exercising self-control also takes effort: Just think, says Musonius, about all the time and energy people expend in illicit love affairs that they would not have undertaken if they had self-control.10 Along similar lines, Seneca observes that “chastity comes with time to spare, lechery has never a moment.”

At a banquet, Seneca was not seated in the place of honor he thought he deserved. Consequently, he spent the banquet angry at those who planned the seating and envious of those who had better seats than he did. His assessment of his behavior: “You lunatic, what difference does it make what part of the couch you put your weight on?”

Besides reflecting on the day’s events, we can devote part of our meditations to going through a kind of mental checklist. Are we practicing the psychological techniques recommended by the Stoics? Do we, for example, periodically engage in negative visualization? Do we take time to distinguish between those things over which we have complete control, those things over which we have no control at all, and those things over which we have some but not complete control? Are we careful to internalize our goals? Have we refrained from dwelling on the past and instead focused our attention on the future? Have we consciously practiced acts of self-denial? We can also use our Stoic meditations as an opportunity to ask whether, in our daily affairs, we are following the advice offered by the Stoics.

Another sign of progress in our practice of Stoicism is that our philosophy will consist of actions rather than words. What matters most, says Epictetus, is not our ability to spout Stoic principles but our ability to live in accordance with them. Thus, at a banquet a Stoic novice might spend her time talking about what a philosophically enlightened individual should eat; a Stoic further along in her practice will simply eat that way. Similarly, a Stoic novice might boast of her simple lifestyle or of giving up wine in favor of water; a more advanced Stoic, having adopted a simple lifestyle and having given up wine in favor of water, will feel no need to comment on the fact. Indeed, Epictetus thinks that in our practice of Stoicism, we should be so inconspicuous that others don’t label us Stoics—or even label us philosophers.

The most important sign that we are making progress as Stoics, though, is a change in our emotional life. It isn’t, as those ignorant of the true nature of Stoicism commonly believe, that we will stop experiencing emotion. We will instead find ourselves experiencing fewer negative emotions. We will also find that we are spending less time than we used to wishing things could be different and more time enjoying things as they are. We will find, more generally, that we are experiencing a degree of tranquility that our life previously lacked. We might also discover, perhaps to our amazement, that 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.

Throughout the millennia and across cultures, those who have thought carefully about desire have drawn the conclusion that spending our days working to get whatever it is we find ourselves wanting is unlikely to bring us either happiness or tranquility.

Besides being selective about the people we befriend, we should be selective, say the Stoics, about which social functions we attend (unless doing our social duty requires us to attend them). Epictetus, for example, advises us to avoid banquets given by nonphilosophers. He also advises us, when we do socialize, to be circumspect in our conversation. People tend to talk about certain things; back in Epictetus’s time, he says, they talked about gladiators, horse races, athletes, eating and drinking—and, most of all, about other people. When we find ourselves in a group that is conversing about such things, Epictetus advises us to be silent or to have few words; alternatively, we might subtly attempt to divert the talk to “something appropriate.”6

Marcus, as we have seen, advocates fatalism, as do the other Stoics. What Marcus seems to be advocating in the passages just cited is a special kind of fatalism, what might be called social fatalism: In our dealings with others, we should operate on the assumption that they are fated to behave in a certain way. It is therefore pointless to wish they could be less annoying. But having said this, I should add that elsewhere, Marcus suggests not only that other people can be changed but that we should work to change them.10 Perhaps what Marcus is saying is that even though it is possible to change others, we can take some of the agony out of dealing with them by telling ourselves that they are fated to behave as they do.

According to Marcus, the biggest risk to us in our dealings with annoying people is that they will make us hate them, a hatred that will be injurious to us. Therefore, we need to work to make sure men do not succeed in destroying our charitable feelings toward them. (Indeed, if a man is good, Marcus says, the gods will never see him harbor a grudge toward someone.) Thus, when men behave inhumanely, we should not feel toward them as they feel toward others. He adds that if we detect anger and hatred within us and wish to seek revenge, one of the best forms of revenge on another person is to refuse to be like him.

WHEN INSULTED, people typically become angry. Because anger is a negative emotion that can upset our tranquility, the Stoics thought it worthwhile to develop strategies to prevent insults from angering us—strategies for removing, as it were, the sting of an insult. One of their sting-elimination strategies is to pause, when insulted, to consider whether what the insulter said is true. If it is, there is little reason to be upset.

Another sting-elimination strategy, suggested by Epictetus, is to pause to consider how well-informed the insulter is. He might be saying something bad about us not because he wants to hurt our feelings but because he sincerely believes what he is saying, or, at any rate, he might simply be reporting how things seem to him.4 Rather than getting angry at this person for his honesty, we should calmly set him straight.

When we consider the sources of insults, says Seneca, we will often find that those who insult us can best be described as overgrown children.5 In the same way that a mother would be foolish to let the “insults” of her toddler upset her, we would be foolish to let the insults of these childish adults upset us. In other cases, we will find that those insulting us have deeply flawed characters. Such people, says Marcus, rather than deserving our anger, deserve our pity.

Do the things that happen to me help or harm me? It all depends, say the Stoics, on my values. They would go on to remind me that my values are things over which I have complete control. Therefore, if something external harms me, it is my own fault: I should have adopted different values.

By laughing off an insult, we are implying that we don’t take the insulter and his insults seriously. To imply this, of course, is to insult the insulter without directly doing so. It is therefore a response that is likely to deeply frustrate the insulter. For this reason, a humorous reply to an insult can be far more effective than a counterinsult would be.

THE PROBLEM WITH replying to insults with humor is that doing so requires both wit and presence of mind. Many of us lack these traits. When insulted, we stand there dumbfounded: We know we have been insulted but don’t know what to do next. If a clever response comes to us, it comes hours later, when it is of little use to us. Nothing is more pathetic, after all, than a person who, a day after being insulted, walks up to the person who insulted him, reminds him of what the insult was, and then gives his reply to it. The Stoics realized this and as a result advocated a second way to respond to insults: with no response at all. Instead of reacting to an insult, says Musonius, we should “calmly and quietly bear what has happened.” This is, he reminds us, “appropriate behavior for a person who wants to be magnanimous.”13 The advantage of a nonresponse, of simply carrying on as if the insulter hadn’t even spoken, is that it requires no thought on our part. Indeed, even the most slow-witted person on the planet can respond to insults in this manner.

Refusing to respond to an insult is, paradoxically, one of the most effective responses possible. For one thing, as Seneca points out, our nonresponse can be quite disconcerting to the insulter, who will wonder whether or not we understood his insult. Furthermore, we are robbing him of the pleasure of having upset us, and he is likely to be upset as a result.

want to admonish or punish the person who childishly insults us. Thus, if a student insults her teacher in front of the class, the teacher would be unwise to ignore the insult. The insulter and her peers might, after all, interpret the teacher’s nonresponse as acquiescence and as a result unleash a barrage of insults against him. This behavior would obviously disrupt the classroom and make it difficult for students to learn. In such cases, though, the Stoic needs to keep in mind that he is punishing the insulter not because she has wronged him but to correct her improper behavior. It is, says Seneca, like training an animal: If in the course of trying to train a horse, we punish him, it should be because we want him to obey us in the future, not because we are angry about his failure to obey us in the past.17

In our discussion of insults, we saw that Seneca makes an exception to his rule to respond to insults with humor or with no response at all: If we are dealing with someone who, despite being an adult, behaves like a child, we might want to punish him for insulting us. It is, after all, the only thing he will understand. Likewise, there are individuals who, when they wrong us, are incapable of changing their behavior in response to our measured, rational entreaties. When dealing with this sort of shallow individual, it does not make sense to become actually angry—doing so will likely spoil our day—but it might make sense, Seneca thinks, to feign anger.4 By doing this, we can get this person to mend his ways with minimal disruption of our own tranquility. In other words, although Seneca rejects the idea of allowing ourselves to become angry in order to motivate ourselves, he is open to the idea of pretending to be angry in order to motivate others.

If we are overly sensitive, we will be quick to anger. More generally, says Seneca, if we coddle ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be corrupted by pleasure, nothing will seem bearable to us, and the reason things will seem unbearable is not because they are hard but because we are soft. Seneca therefore recommends that we take steps to ensure that we never get too comfortable. (This, of course, is only one of the reasons Stoics give for eschewing comfort; in chapter 7 we examined some others.) If we harden ourselves in this manner, we are much less likely to be disturbed, he says, by the shouting of a servant or the slamming of a door, and therefore much less likely to be angered by such things. We won’t be overly sensitive about what others say or do, and we will be less likely to find ourselves provoked by “vulgar trivialities,” such as being served lukewarm water to drink or seeing a couch in a mess.

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.” He also offers anger-management advice that has a parallel in Buddhism. When angry, says Seneca, we should take steps to “turn all [anger’s] indications into their opposites.” We should force ourselves to relax our face, soften our voice, and slow our pace of walking. If we do this, our internal state will soon come to resemble our external state, and our anger, says Seneca, will have dissipated.

People who achieve luxurious lifestyles are rarely satisfied: Experiencing luxury only whets their appetite for even more luxury. In defense of this claim, Seneca asks his friend Lucilius to imagine that he has become magnificently wealthy, that his house has marble floors and is decked with gold, and that his clothing is royal purple. Having all this, he observes, will not make Lucilius happy: “You will only learn from such things to crave still greater.” This is because the desire for luxuries is not a natural desire. Natural desires, such as a desire for water when we are thirsty, can be satisfied; unnatural desires cannot.12 Therefore, when we find ourselves wanting something, we should pause to ask whether the desire is natural or unnatural, and if it is unnatural, we should think twice about trying to satisfy it.

If we take to heart the advice of the Stoics and forgo luxurious living, we will find that our needs are easily met, for as Seneca reminds us, life’s necessities are cheap and easily obtainable.15 Those who crave luxury typically have to spend considerable time and energy to attain it; those who eschew luxury can devote this same time and energy to other, more worthwhile undertakings.

Thus, the proximity of death, rather than depressing us, can be turned to our advantage. In our youth, because we assumed that we would live forever, we took our days for granted and as a result wasted many of them. In our old age, however, waking up each morning can be a cause for celebration. As Seneca notes, “If God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad hearts.”4 And after celebrating having been given another day to live, we can fill that day with appreciative living. It is entirely possible for an octogenarian to be more joyful than her twenty-year-old grandchild, particularly if the octogenarian, in part because of her failing health, takes nothing for granted, while the grandchild, in part because of her perfect health, takes everything for granted and has therefore decided that life is a bore.

For most people, experiencing delight requires a change in circumstances; they might, for example, have to acquire a new consumer gadget. Stoics, in contrast, can experience delight without any such change; because they practice negative visualization, they will deeply appreciate the things they already have. Furthermore, for most people, the delight they experience will be somewhat clouded by the fear that they will lose the source of their delight.

The Stoics, while doing their social duty, will not think in terms of sacrifice. Ideally, they will, as a result of practicing Stoicism, want to do what their social duty requires them to do. If this sounds strange, think about the duties involved in parenting. Parents do lots of things for their children, but Stoic parents—and, I suspect, good parents in general—don’t think of parenting as a burdensome task requiring endless sacrifice; instead, they think about how wonderful it is that they have children and can make a positive difference in the lives of these children.

I have discovered, by the way, that applying the trichotomy of control, besides helping me manage my own anxieties, is an effective technique for allaying the anxieties of the non-Stoics around me, which anxieties might otherwise disrupt my tranquility. When relatives and friends share with me the sources of anxiety in their lives, it often turns out that the things they are worried about are beyond their control. My response to such cases is to point this out to them: “What can you do about this situation? Nothing! Then why are you worrying about it? It is out of your hands, so it is pointless to worry.” (And if I am in the mood, I follow this last comment with a quotation from Marcus Aurelius: “Nothing is worth doing pointlessly.”) It is interesting that even though some of the people I have tried this on can charitably be described as anxiety-prone, they almost always respond to the logic of the trichotomy of control: Their anxiety is dispelled, if only for a time.

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. My only entertainment at a mall is to watch the other mall-goers. Most of them, I suspect, come to the mall not because there is something specific that they need to buy. Rather, they come in the hope that doing so will trigger a desire for something that, before going to the mall, they didn’t want. It might be a desire for a cashmere sweater, a set of socket wrenches, or the latest cell phone. Why

Those wishing to read the Stoics would do well to start with the essays of Seneca, especially, “On the Happy Life,” “On Tranquility of Mind,” and “On the Shortness of Life.” These can be found in Seneca: Dialogues and Essays (Oxford University Press, 2008). Alternatively, they are available in volume 2 of Seneca: Moral Essays, in the Loeb Classical Library. (This volume also has the advantage of being small enough to fit into a pocket or purse. Thus, if readers find themselves at a banquet given by nonphilosophers and the talk turns to inappropriate things, they can slip off to a quiet corner, pull out their copy of Seneca, and read.)