Arthur Schopenhauer is considered to be one
of the greatest philosophers of all time. He lived from the end of the 18th to the beginning
of the 19th century and while he is often described as a genius philosopher, he has
also been given less flattering monikers such as The Sad Prince of pessimism and The Messenger
of Misery, due to his particularly unique philosophical views . He influenced the work
of many great thinkers after him, from philosophers to psychologists to physicists, including
Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein and so many
others. Arthur Schopenhauer’s work is part of the
philosophy of pessimism and Schopenhauer is mostly known for his famous
book “The World as Will and Representation”, in which he describes the physical world as
the manifestation of an invisible force, a metaphysical will. Schopenhauer's philosophy is based on the
idea that the world we perceive is not the real world, we see reality through our own
personal filters, which Indian philosophy calls "the veils of Maya" that prevent us
from seeing “actual reality”. Schopenhauer is one of the philosophers who
pondered the most on subjects such as loneliness, solitude, boredom and what true happiness
means. Although his views on life are known for being
extremely pessimistic, his work reveals a deep wisdom which can teach us how to deal
with the most unpleasant episodes in our lives, which is why in this video we bring you 7
life lessons inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer:
1. Find yourself in solitude
Arthur Schopenhauer says: “We can only be entirely ourselves as long as we are alone;
therefore, whoever does not love solitude, also does not love freedom; for only when
we are alone, are we free.” According to Schopenhauer, the capacity to
be alone is one of the most distinctive marks of a high intellectual being. Sociability has an inverse relationship with
the intellectual capacity of someone. The more sociable we are, the less we can
invest in developing our intellectual capacity. The less sociable we are, the more time we
have to reflect on the meaning of our existence, on who we really are. That is why Schopenhauer encourages us to
learn to be in solitude, to find that quiet place in our minds where we can retreat and
find ourselves. Our freedom exists only in our solitude, when
all the outside noise is shut down. However, there is a danger associated with
being lonely and a distinction must be made between solitude and loneliness. If loneliness means to be desperately in need
to be with other people and to not be able to be, solitude means that you made a conscious
choice to be by yourself and enjoy your own company. Schopenhauer doesn’t encourage us to withdraw
from this world completely, he just emphasizes that you need to learn to be by yourself,
at least from time to time, in order to connect with your greatest aspirations and inner nature. To apply this lesson in our own lives, we
need to put aside more time to spend alone, reading books, meditating, taking long walks
outside, and contemplating the world and our existence. Nowadays, with so many distracting forces
like social media, deadlines at work, we can easily forget about our long-term goals. Thus, we become prisoners of circumstance,
we lose control of our own lives. The best thing to do to avoid this is to prioritize
the time we allocate to ourselves. We need to write “me-time” into our agenda
, dedicated time in which we can retreat from the outside world. We could schedule a meditation walk to a nearby
park, or block a few hours to spend time writing in a journal and to think on our goals in
life, or perhaps spending some time reading a philosophy book which could give us new
insights into the world around us. 2. Remove suffering to be happy
Schopenhauer tells us: “What is generally called happiness is actually and essentially
only ever negative and absolutely never positive.” Oftentimes Schopenhauer is described as a
philosopher who didn’t believe in the concept of happiness. This is far from the truth. Schopenhauer didn’t link happiness with
feelings of joy, pleasure and ecstasy, which he saw merely as ways to escape from boredom
and negativity, but rather he saw in happiness the absence of suffering in the first place. For example, we are not aware of how healthy
we are. It is only when we start to feel some sort
of pain, such as a headache or a stomach upset, that we notice our bodies not operating as
normal. In the same way, only when we experience a
certain degree of emotional suffering, we realize that we were happy before, but not
anymore. Given this simple fact, in order to be happy,
what we need to do is to remember the happy times we had in life, to evaluate where we
are now, what kind of suffering we’re experiencing at that moment and make the effort to remove
that suffering. To do that, we need to track our happy moments
and try to relive them as much as possible. Also, when we experience something unpleasant,
we should try to find methods to remove these unpleasant experiences from our lives. It can be a painful process to make all those
changes, but it is incredibly worthwhile. If we just focus on getting pleasure from
life, it means we ignore the problems instead of facing them until eventually they catch
up with us once they have become significant enough issues to be unavoidable. But if we face our problems directly, instead
of ignoring them, we will be able to remove the roots of suffering and we can increase
the amount of happiness we experience in our lives. For example, consider that you are working
in a miserable job that you hate, but you can’t leave it because you need to pay the
rent and cover your bills. One evening, after a long day at work, you
stop in front of your favourite shop and you see a stunning outfit in the window that you
desperately want to add to your collection and you’re sure will make you feel better. Instead of buying that outfit with your credit
card to please yourself for a brief moment, you should try to reflect on the cause of
your unhappiness. In our example, you realise that you make
too many sacrifices for a job that gives you so little satisfaction so instead of the short-lived
dopamine hit of an impulse shopping spree, you could spend that money on further education
to open access to better jobs that will make you happier in the long run or to start a
side business like an eBay shop or YouTube channel to shift focus away from your day
job and begin to build a platform to help you escape it permanently. 3. Understand your subconscious mind
To quote Schopenhauer: “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” “Will” is the basis on which Schopenhauer's
philosophy as a whole was built. In his main book entitled "The World as Will
and Representation", we understand from the concept of will that it is a psychological
force that controls our actions. We often find ourselves doing things automatically,
like an invisible force controlling us. This is what Schopenhauer calls “the will”
- a blind and irrational force, which takes over our minds in many life situations. We often think we are in control of our actions,
but actually there is something bigger than ourselves which drives us. We are like the rider on a big elephant - our
subconscious. We, the conscious mind can only guide this
elephant, but we cannot fully control it. The best thing to do is to become friends
with him, trying to understand him better, what drives him, what scares him and guides
him on safe land. We need to keep in mind we cannot force him
to do anything, but we can help him achieve his goals faster. As a real life example, consider that you
want to lose weight. You can try to force yourself to keep a rigid
diet, sweat for 2 hours every day in the gym, but there is a great danger you will make
your “elephant” angry and he will protest in the most brutal way, deciding all of a
sudden to eat an entire chocolate cake at the end of a difficult day at work. Your elephant will get his revenge if you
do not treat him with kindness. To avoid making your elephant angry, you should
try to introduce a new tiny habit each day, for example today you can start eating only
one slice of bread at each meal, tomorrow you can walk for 10 minutes, the day after
tomorrow you can walk for 20 minutes and so on. Make the changes carefully and systematically
if you want to see the long-term effects. 4. Limit your expectations
Schopenhauer teaches us: “The safest way of not being very miserable is to not expect
to be very happy.” Schopenhauer argues that a life with less
suffering is much better than a life with the greatest joys. When we are young, we pursue our goals with
energy and anxiety, with the far stretched ideals of happiness, chasing professional
ambitions to be somebody in society, fighting to be somebody we are not. In other words, we put a lot of stress on
ourselves and our expectations are very high. Nowadays, especially, the lifestyles of the
rich and famous are presented as a model to follow, but, behind the scenes, they often
fight with severe issues of drug abuse, depression and anxiety. We should stop chasing these kinds of ideals. Instead of fighting to acquire or experience
things to make us happy, we should focus on minimizing the pain. As we get older, a lot of us realize this
pattern and start giving up the frantic pursuit of happiness that kept us miserable in our
younger years. We start to focus on minimizing pain, rather
than pursuing pleasures in life. That invisible “will” which pushes us
towards an endless torture and letting the desires run our lives, has less effect when
we are older. But, certainly, it is much better if we try
to practice limiting our expectations from a younger age, to live more of those happier
years, without so much suffering. To do this, we need to work on how we see
the world and how we see ourselves. The way we see ourselves and the world is
oftentimes the root of our unhappiness. We need to be more realistic about our qualities
and skills, we need to put our professional goals on a more realistic scale. Also, we need to be more compassionate towards
other people, have fewer expectations from our partner, and stop demanding other people
be perfect. It is far better to work on our real qualities
and skills and develop them step by step, than pretend we are something we are not in
order to achieve a higher position in our job. Also, it is far better to enjoy the company
of an imperfect partner than to change your partner often in the pursuit of finding a
perfect one. To be happy, peaceful, and healthy is much
more important than to be famous, adored or having a partner as a trophy to show off. Therefore, we need to limit our expectations
and learn to enjoy life as it is. 5. Be compassionate
Schopenhauer posits that: “Compassion is the basis of morality.” Schopenhauer believed that there are many
ways to free a person from suffering, at the same time saving him from the crisis of existence:
one is the path of art, the path of austerity and non-desire, and another one is the path
of morals. If art is a temporary remedy, the path of
morals is a permanent remedy: consequently, one must realize that happiness is not the
goal of life. This is because life has no goal, and perhaps
sleep is the only moment when a person achieves a natural state of happiness. Our environment would be unbearable if we
didn’t have any moral guidance to navigate through it. We need to find meaning in this world and
one of the most effective ways to find this meaning is to learn to be compassionate towards
other human beings. We should not pursue our happiness at the
cost of other people. In the end, we are all manifestations of the
Will, we are all in this life together, and, according to Schopenhauer, all moral actions
can be reduced to “injure no one; on the contrary, help everyone as much as you can”. In our daily lives, to show compassion and
good morals, we need to think of the people around us every time we speak and act, we
have to make sure we do not injure anyone, that our actions are fair and considerate
to others. Also, we have to do our best to help the people
who need help. For sure, we can think of family members and
friends who are now in trouble, maybe they do not have a job, maybe are struggling with
a physical disease or condition, perhaps they are having problems in their relationship. It is not that difficult to put in a good
word with the company you are currently working in for a friend applying for a job there. It is not difficult to call them to ask how
they are doing, how they are coping with their medical issues or with marital problems and
offer advice and comfort. No matter how small, it might just make all
the difference. 6. Avoid boredom
According to Schopenhauer: “The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human
happiness are pain and boredom.” Boredom is the second enemy of living a happy
life. And it is one of the centrepieces of Schopenhauer’s
philosophy. As soon as we get rid of pain, we are susceptible
to enter a state of boredom, which prevents us from having a fulfilled life. Arthur Schopenhauer is a pessimistic philosopher,
he didn’t see happiness as a common state for a human being, but rather as an extraordinary
and temporary moment. His work focused not on happiness, but on
pain and boredom. As soon as you remove pain from your life,
you will usually have boredom taking its place and not pleasure. We are perpetually in the pursuit of trying
to capture what we desire, need, or lack; once we succeed in obtaining our goal, we
realize it does not give the satisfaction or happiness we had anticipated. And off we go again, pursuing something else
to make us happy only to find ourselves back to the very boredom we were trying to avoid. Boredom is the state when you have everything
you need and oftentimes leads to nihilism and depression, because the force which pushed
us to chase the desired material things - “the will” can never be satisfied with what it
gets. That is why we often see famous people who
have absolutely everything in this life, but they don’t really know how to maintain their
happiness, they soon fall into boredom which leads to nihilism and depression, they succumb
to drugs, they divorce more often, they spend their money in a careless way, or even commit
suicide. In order to avoid this from happening, Schopenhauer
recommends us to concentrate less on the outside world and more on the inside. Less on possessions, less on how many cars
you have, how many houses, and basing your worth on your wealth. Only by ignoring the shiny objects of the
external world, can you really escape from oscillating around the pain-boredom axis. To do that, you need to concentrate more on
the connection between your body and mind, to have a more holistic approach to life,
to be aware of each moment. Meditation can help a lot in this, it helps
in becoming more conscious of the small things that are essential in life, starting simply
with your breath. Also, writing a gratitude journal each morning,
counting all the blessings you have in life can help you avoid taking things for granted. A gratitude journal is a great shortcut for
maintaining a fulfilled life, free from boredom, with the only caveat being that you need to
count your inner blessings more, you need to focus on your inner world, on your close
relationships, and not on the external world, on possessions, success or fame. 7. Make room for art
In our final quote from Schopenhauer for this video, he tells us: “The true work of art
leads us from that which exists only once and never again, i.e. the individual, to that
which exists perpetually and time and time again in innumerable manifestations, the pure
form or Idea.” Schopenhauer was very much influenced by Plato,
the ancient Greek philosopher. Plato considered that we are like cavemen,
we can see only the shadows of the real truths, their manifestation in this world, and not
their real essence. Schopenhauer, by analogy, considered that
we live in a world where the truth is distorted, what we see is not the essence of reality,
we can see only the shadows. The Will to live is what keeps us prisoners
in the cave, manipulating our lives like we're some kind of puppet, keeping us in the cycle
of pain and boredom. There is one great way to temporarily escape
from this cave, from our ordinary life, this is through art. For example, we can contemplate the beauty
of a painting, listen to high quality music, sculpting, photographing beautiful landscapes
and people, doing anything which elevates our souls and it is creative by nature. Schopenhauer considered that music is the
best way to see the true essence of the world. Scientists from Stanford did a lot of studies
on the baroque music of the 18th century and it was proven that by listening to baroque
music the brain changes, baroque music of the 18th century increases the level of awareness
and intelligence. Even if you might not be a fan of 18th century
baroque music, you can still follow Schopenhauer’s advice to include as much real art as possible
in your life, because through art you can liberate yourself from the ordinary desires
and needs, which keep you in pain or boredom. Art has the quality to transcend reality and
to connect us with the real spiritual essence of this world. If you enjoyed this video, please do make
sure to check out the full Philosophies for Life channel, and for more videos to help
you find success and happiness using ancient philosophical wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much for watching.
I disagree entirely, with Schopenhauer's ideas on boredom, as I see that as a key to the creative process. This gives us the opportunity to pursue art, which Schopenhauer asserts, leads to transcendence.