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"In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a road map for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable firsthand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. We learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have." "Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows us how to become thoughtful observers of our own lives. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life."--Jacket.… (more)
One of the best self-help texts I have read, filtered through the stories and beliefs of the stoic philosophers who worried particularly about how to live a good life.
A book I will reread and look into its sources, the psychology of life tools seem really useful for the life on this planet. ( )
As a "philosophy of life", Stoicism has a lot to recommend it. Everyone could use a little more tranquillity in their life. I found this book fairly repetitive, but it was ultimately a good, systematic introduction to the Stoics whose philosophies are a kind of mental judo against negative emotions. Well worth consideration by anyone that might struggle with self-worth or fulfilment. ( )
A very accessible introduction to Stoicism. The author is clearly enthused but to his credit he also allows that others may find another approach to a personal 'philosophy of life' a better fit for themselves.
I find the stoic exhortation to be careful about goals and to accept for one self the goal of doing one's best rather than a particular achievement in the world to fit quite well with Carol Dweck's psychology of the 'growth mindset'.
It's Irvine's exploration of hedonic adaptation and the value of negative visualization that I find most compelling. This by itself is reason enough to explore this philosophy.
In today's world, some of the questions Irvine raises- What is the most helpful approach to grieving, assistance with emotional expression or unassisted bearing? - should be amenable to experimental trial. There is certainly anough grief in the world and you can make the case that we should become as skilled as possible in managing it.
Gives a good presentation of Stoicism, but otherwise fails to be particularly engaging. Also, the author seems to be unable to get out of his myopic (and apparently very cut-throat and mean) academic world and so dwells a lot on how to be a closet Stoic to avoid being mocked for it. Finally, he takes pains to point out how one's Stoic demeanor will surely piss off those who are being insulting. I'm at best semi-stoic, and that mostly by happenstance, but I'm sort of thinking this can't be a very stoic attitude. Anyhow, if there's a Complete Idiot's Guide to Stoicism or a Stoicism For Dummies, either is surely a better option for getting turned on to Stoicism than this dry set of pages. ( )
All in all Irvine does a fine job in offering his “resolutely practical” brand of Stoicism to a popular audience. His citation of the original sources is effective and stimulating of interest. His tone is just the right one for the popular audience he wishes to reach. But Irvine’s work has more to offer than that. I believe he has unwittingly done a service to the scholarly audience as well by reminding us that the Stoics (and other ancient schools) were indeed all concerned with ‘meaning of life’ questions ...
In memory of Charlie Doyle, who taught me to keep my head in the boat even when I'm not rowing.
First words
What do you want out of life?
Quotations
Indeed, pursuing pleasure, Seneca warns, is like pursuing a wild beast: On being captured, it can turn on us and tear us to pieces. Or, changing the metaphor a bit, he tells us that intense pleasures, when captured by us, become our captors, meaning that the more pleasures a man captures, “the more masters will he have to serve.”
[Antisthenes, a Cynic] also advised his listeners to “pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
Your primary desire, says Epictetus, should be your desire not to be frustrated by forming desires you won’t be able to fulfill.
if we seek social status, we give other people power over us: We have to do things calculated to make them admire us, and we have to refrain from doing things that will trigger their disfavor.
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 humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.
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.
If you consider yourself a victim, you are not going to have a good life; if, however, you refuse to think of yourself as a victim—if you refuse to let your inner self be conquered by your external circumstances—you are likely to have a good life, no matter what turn your external circumstances take. (In particular, the Stoics thought it possible for a person to retain his tranquility despite being punished for attempting to reform the society in which he lived.)
Stoicism, understood properly, is a cure for a disease. The disease in question is the anxiety, grief, fear, and various other negative emotions that plague humans and prevent them from experiencing a joyful existence.
We are social creatures; we will be miserable if we try to cut off contact with other people. Therefore, if what we seek is tranquility, we should form and maintain relations with others. In doing so, though, we should be careful about whom we befriend. We should also, to the extent possible, avoid people whose values are corrupt, for fear that their values will contaminate ours.
For the Stoics, however, the near impossibility of becoming a sage is not a problem. They talk about sages primarily so they will have a model to guide them in their practice of Stoicism. The sage is a target for them to aim at, even though they will probably fail to hit it. The sage, in other words, is to Stoicism as Buddha is to Buddhism. Most Buddhists can never hope to become as enlightened as Buddha, but nevertheless, reflecting on Buddha's perfection can help them gain a degree of enlightenment.
The problem is that “bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters,” and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.
Besides advising us to avoid people with vices, Seneca advises us to avoid people who are simply whiny, “who are melancholy and bewail everything, who find pleasure in every opportunity for complaint.”
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.
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.
Last words
Indeed, according to Marcus, it is possible, through the practice of Stoicism, to gain a whole new life.
"In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a road map for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable firsthand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. We learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have." "Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows us how to become thoughtful observers of our own lives. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life."--Jacket.
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A book I will reread and look into its sources, the psychology of life tools seem really useful for the life on this planet. (