How To Practice Stoicism in Daily Life

practicing stoicism I will end this book by sharing some of the insights I have gained in my practice of Stoicism in particular I will offer advice on how individuals wishing to try stoicism as their philosophy of life can derive the maximum benefit from the trial with the minimum effort and frustration I will also describe some of the surprises as well as some of the delights that lie in store for would-be Stoics the first tip I would offer to those wishing to give stoicism a try is to practice what I have referred to as stealth stoicism you would do well I think to keep it a secret that you are a practicing stoic this would have been my own strategy had I not taken it upon myself to become a teacher of stoicism by practicing stoicism stealthily you can gain its benefits while avoiding one significant cost the teasing an outright mockery of your friends relatives neighbors and coworkers it is I should add quite easy to practice stoicism on the sly you can for example engage in negative visualization without anyone being the wiser if your practice of stoicism is successful friends relatives neighbors and coworkers might notice the difference in you a change for the better but they will probably be hard-pressed to explain the transformation if they come to you perplexed and ask what your secret is you might choose to reveal the sordid truth to them that you are a closet stoic my next piece of advice for would-be Stoics is not to try to master all the stoic techniques at once but to start with one technique and having become proficient in it go on to another and a good technique to start with I think is negative visualization at spare moments in the day make it a point to contemplate the loss of whatever you value in life engaging in such contemplation can produce a dramatic transformation in your outlook on life it can make you realize if only for a time how lucky you are how much you have to be thankful for almost regardless of your circumstances it is my experience that negative visualization is to daily living as salt is to cooking although it requires minimal time energy and talent for a cook to add salt to food the taste of almost any food he adds it to will be enhanced as a result in much the same way although practicing negative visualization requires minimal time energy and talent those who practice it will find that their capacity to enjoy life is significantly enhanced you might find yourself after engaging in negative visualization embracing the very life that a short time before you had complained wasn't worth living one thing I have discovered though in my practice of stoicism is that it is easy to forget to engage in negative visualization and as a result to go for days or even weeks without having visualized I think I know why this happens by engaging negative visualization we increase our satisfaction with our circumstances but on gaining the sense of satisfaction the natural thing to do is simply enjoy life indeed it is decidedly unnatural for someone who is satisfied with life to spend time thinking about the bad things that can happen the Stoics however would remind us that negative visualization besides making us appreciate what we have can help us avoid clinging to the things we appreciate consequently it is as important to engage in negative visualization when times are good as it is when times are bad I tried making it my practice to engage in negative visualization each night at bedtime as a part of the bedtime meditation described back in chapter 8 but the experiment failed my problem is that I tend to fall asleep remarkably fast after my head hits the pillow there simply isn't time to visualize I have instead made it my practice to engage in negative visualization and more generally to assess my progress as a stoic while driving to work by doing this I transform idle time into time well-spent after mastering negative visualization a novice stoic should move on to become proficient in applying the trichotomy of control described in chapter 5 according to the Stoics we should perform a kind of triage in which we distinguish between things we have no control over things we have complete control over and things we have some but not complete control over and having made this distinction we should focus our attention on the last two categories in particular we waste our time and cause ourselves needless anxiety if we concern ourselves with things over which we have no control I have discovered by the way that applying the trichotomy of control besides helping me manage my own anxieties is an effective technique for allowing 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 as a stoic novice you will want as part of becoming proficient in applying the trichotomy of control to practice internalizing your goals instead of having winning a tennis match as your goal for example make it your goal to prepare for the match as best you can and to try your hardest in the match by routinely internalizing your goals you can reduce but probably not eliminate what would otherwise be a significant source of distress in your life the feeling that you have failed to accomplish some goal in your practice of Stoicism you will also want in conjunction with applying the trichotomy of control to become a psychological fatalist about the past and the present but not about the future although you will be willing to think about the past and present in order to learn things that can help you better deal with the obstacles to tranquility throwing your way in the future you will refuse to spend time engaging in if only thoughts about the past and present you will realize that in as much as the past and present cannot be changed it is pointless to wish they could be different you will do your best to accept the past whatever it might have been and to embrace the present whatever it might be other people as we have seen are the enemy and our battle for tranquillity it was for this reason that the Stoics spent time developing strategies for dealing with this enemy and in particular strategies for dealing with the insults of those with whom we associate one of the most interesting developments in my practice of stoicism has been my transformation from someone who dreaded insults into an insult connoisseur for one thing I have become a collector of insults on being insulted I analyzed and categorized the insult for another thing I look forward to being insulted in as much as it affords me the opportunity to perfect my insult game I know this sounds strange but one consequence of the practice of stoicism is that one seeks opportunities to put stoic techniques to work I will have more to say about this phenomenon below one of the things that makes insults difficult to deal with is that they generally come as surprises you are calmly chatting with someone when Wham he says something that although it might not have been intended as an insult can easily be construed as one recently for example I was talking to a colleague about a book he was writing he said that in this book he was going to comment on some political material I had published I was delighted that he was aware of my work and was going to mention it but then came the put-down I'm trying to decide he said whether in my response to what you have written I should categorize you as evil or merely misguided realize that such comments are to be expected from academics we are a pathetically contentious lot we want others not only to be aware of our work but to admire it and better still to defer to the conclusions we have drawn the problem is that our colleagues seek the same admiration and deference from us something has to give and as a result on campuses everywhere academics routinely engage in verbal fisticuffs put-downs are commonplace and insults fly in my pre stoic days I would have felt the sting of this insult and probably would have gotten angry I would have vigorously defended my work and would have done my best to unleash a counter insult but on that particular day having fallen under the influence of the Stoics I had the presence of mind to respond to this insult in a stoic ly acceptable manner with self-deprecating humor why can't you portray me as being both evil and misguided I asked self-deprecating humor has become my standard response to insults when someone criticizes me I reply that matters are even worse than he is suggesting if for example someone suggests that I am lazy I reply that it is a miracle that I get any work done at all if someone accuses me of having a big ego I reply that on most days it is noon before I become aware that anyone else inhabits the planet such responses may seem counterproductive since in offering them I am in a sense validating the insulters criticisms of me but by offering such responses I make it clear to the insulter that I have enough confidence in Who I am to be impervious to his insults for me they are a laughing matter furthermore by refusing to play the insult game by refusing to respond to an insult with a counter insult I make it clear that I regard myself as being above such behavior my refusal to play the insult game will likely irritate the Psalter more than a counter insult would one of the worst things we can do when other people annoy us is get angry the anger will after all be a major obstacle to our tranquility the Stoics realized that anger is anti joy and that it can ruin our life if we let it in the course of observing my emotions I have paid careful attention to anger and as a result have discovered a few things about it to begin with I have become fully aware of the extent to which anger has a life of its own within me it can lie dormant like a virus only to revive and make me miserable when I least expect it I might for example be in yoga class trying to empty my head of thoughts when out of nowhere I find myself filled with anger about some incident that took place years before furthermore I have drawn the conclusion that Seneca was mistaken in suggesting that there is no pleasure in experiencing anger this is the problem with anger it feels good to vent it and feels bad to suppress it indeed when our anger is righteous anger when we are confident that we are right and whomever we are angry at is wrong it feels quite wonderful to vent it and let the person who wronged us know of our anger anger in other words resembles a mosquito bite it feels bad not to scratch the bite and it feels good to scratch it the problem with mosquito bites of course is that after you scratch one you typically wish you hadn't done so the itch returns intensified and by scratching the bite you increase the chance that it will become infected much the same can be said of anger although it feels good to vent it you will probably subsequently regret having done so it is one thing to vent anger or better still feign anger with the goal of modifying someone's behavior people do respond to anger what I have discovered though is that a significant portion of the anger event can't be explained in these terms when I am driving my car for example I periodically get angry righteously I think at other drivers who drive incompetently and sometimes I even yell at them since my windows and theirs are rolled up the other drivers can't hear me and therefore can't respond to my anger by not doing again in the future whatever it was that made me mad this anger although righteous is utterly pointless by venting it I accomplished nothing other than to disturb my own tranquility in other cases although I am righteously angry at someone I cannot because of my circumstances express my anger directly to him so instead I find myself having black thoughts about him again these feelings of anger are pointless they disturb me but have no impact at all on the person at whom I am angry indeed if anything they serve to compound the harm he does me what a waste I have found by the way the practicing stoicism has helped me reduce the frequency with which I get angry at other drivers I'll yell perhaps 1/10 as often as I used to it has also helped me reduce the number of black thoughts I have about people who wronged me long ago and when black thoughts do infect me they don't last as long as they used to because anger has these characteristics because it can lie dormant within us and because venting it feels good our anger will be difficult to overcome and learning to overcome it is one of the biggest challenges a stoic practitioner faces but one thing I have found is that the more you think about and understand anger the easier it is to control it as it so happens I read Senecas essay on anger while waiting at a doctor's office the doctor was woefully behind schedule and as a result I was left sitting in the waiting room for nearly an hour I had every right to be angry and in my pre stoic day as I almost certainly would have been angry but because I was thinking about anger during that hour I found it impossible to get angry I have also found that it is quite useful to use humor as a defense against anger in particular I have found that one wonderful way to avoid getting angry is to imagine myself as a character in an absurdist play things aren't supposed to make sense people aren't supposed to be competent and justice when it happens at all happens by accident instead of letting myself be angered by events I persuade myself to laugh at them indeed I try to think of ways the imaginary absurdist playwright could have made things still more absurd Seneca I am certain was right when he pointed to laughter as the proper response to the things which drive us to tears Seneca also observes that he shows a greater mind who does not restrain his laughter then he who does not restrain his tears since the laughter gives expression to the mildest of the emotions and deems that there is nothing important nothing serious nor wretched either in the whole outfit of life besides advising us to imagine bad things happening to us the Stoics as we have seen advised us to cause bad things to happen as the result of our undertaking a programme of voluntary discomfort Seneca for example advises us periodically to live as if we were poor and Musso Gnaeus advises us to do things to cause ourselves discomfort following this advice requires a greater degree of self-discipline than practicing the other stoic techniques does programs of voluntary discomfort are therefore best left to advanced Stoics I have experimented with a program of voluntary discomfort I have not attempted to go barefoot as mu Sonia suggested but I have tried less radical behavior such as under dressing for winter weather not heating my car in the winter and not air conditioning it in the summer I have also started taking yoga classes Yoga has improved my balance and flexibility reminded me of the importance of play and made me acutely aware of how little control I have over the contents of my mind but besides conferring these and other benefits on me Yoga has become a wonderful source of voluntary discomfort while doing yoga I twist myself into poses that are uncomfortable or that in some cases border on being painful I will for example bend my legs until they are at the very edge of a cramp and then back off a bit my yoga teacher though never talks about pain instead she talks about poses giving rise to too much sensation she has taught me how to breathe into the place that hurts which of course is physiologically impossible if what I am experiencing is say a leg cramp and yet the technique undeniably works another source of discomfort and admittedly of entertainment and delight as well is rowing shortly after I began practicing stoicism I learned to row a racing shell and have since started racing competitively we rowers are exposed to heat and humidity in the summer and to cold wind and sometimes even snow in the spring and fall we are periodically splashed unceremoniously with water we develop blisters and then calluses whittling down calluses is a favorite off water activity of serious rowers besides being a source of physical discomfort rowing is a wonderful source of emotional discomfort in particular rowing has provided me with a list of fears to overcome the racing shells I row are quite unstable indeed given half a chance they will gleefully dump a rower into the water it took me considerable effort to overcome my fear of flipping by successfully surviving three flips from there I went on to work through other fears including a fear of rowing in the pre-dawn darkness a fear of pushing off from the dock while standing up in the boat and a fear of being out in the middle of a lake hundreds of yards from the nearest shore in a tiny boat that has thrice betrayed me whenever you undertake an activity in which public failure is a possibility you are likely to experience butterflies in your stomach I mentioned above that since becoming a stoic I have become a collector of insults I have also become a collector of butterflies I like to engage in activities such as competitive rowing that give me butterflies simply so I can practice dealing with these feelings are after all an important component of the fear of failure so that by dealing with them I am working to overcome my fear of failure in the hours before a race I experienced some truly magnificent butterflies I do my best to turn them to my advantage they make me focus on the race that lies ahead once a race has begun I have the pleasure of watching the butterflies depart I have also turned elsewhere in my pursuit of butterflies after I began practicing stoicism for example I decided to learn how to play a musical instrument something I had never done before the instrument I chose was the banjo after several months of lessons my teacher asked if I wanted to participate in the recital his students give I initially rejected the offer it sounded like no fun at all to risk public humiliation trying to play banjo in front of a bunch of strangers but then it occurred to me that this was a wonderful opportunity to caused myself psychological discomfort and to confront and hopefully vanquish my fear of failing I agreed to take part the recital was the most stress inducing event I had experienced in a long time it isn't that I have a fear of crowds I can with zero anxiety walk into a classroom of 60 students I have never met and start lecturing them but this was different before my performance I experienced butterflies the size of small bats not only that but I also slipped into an altered state of consciousness in which time was distorted and the laws of physics seemed to stop working but to make a long story short I survived the recital the butterflies I experienced racing in a regatta or giving a banjo recital are of course a symptom of anxiety and it might seem contrary to stoic principles to go out of my way to cause my self anxiety indeed if a goal of stoicism is the attainment of tranquillity shouldn't I go out of my way to avoid anxiety inducing activities shouldn't I rather than collecting butterflies flee from them not at all in causing myself anxiety by for example giving a banjo recital I have precluded much future anxiety in my life now when faced with a new challenge I have a wonderful bit of reasoning I can use compared to the banjo recital this new challenge is nothing I survived that challenge so surely I will survive this one by taking part in the recital in other words I immunized myself against a fair amount of future anxiety it is an immunization though that will wear off with the passage of time and I need to be re immune eyes with another dose of butterflies when doing things to cause myself physical and mental discomfort I view myself or 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 the 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 to win points in the contest with my other self i must establish my dominance over him to do this I must cause him to experience discomfort he could easily have avoided and I must prevent him from experiencing pleasures he might otherwise have enjoyed when he is scared of doing something I must force him to confront his fears and overcome them why play this game against my other self in part to gain self-discipline and why is self-discipline worth possessing because those who possess it have the ability to determine what they do with their life those who lack self-discipline will have the path they take through life determined by someone or something else and as a result there is a very real danger that we'll miss live playing the game against my other self also helps me build character these days I realized people smirk at talk of building character but it is an activity that the Stoics would heartily have endorsed and would have recommended to anyone wishing to have a good life one other reason for playing the game against my other self is that it is somewhat surprisingly fun to do it is quite enjoyable to win a point in this game by for example successfully overcoming a fear the Stoics realized as much Epictetus as we saw in chapter 7 talks about the pleasure to be derived from denying ourselves various pleasures along similar lines Seneca reminds us that even though it may be unpleasant to endure something we will on successfully enduring it be pleased with ourselves when I row competitively it may look as though I am trying to beat the other rowers but I am in fact engaged in a much more significant competition the one against my other self he didn't want to learn to row he didn't want to do workouts preferring instead to spend the pre-dawn hours to sleep in a warm bed he didn't want to row to the starting line of the race indeed on the way there he repeatedly whined about how tired he felt and during the race he wanted to quit rowing and simply let the other rowers win if you just quit rowing he would say in his most seductive voice all this pain would come to an end why not just quit think of how good it will feel it is curious but my competitors in a race are simultaneously my teammates in the much more important competition against my other self by racing against each other we are all simultaneously racing against ourselves although not all of us are consciously aware of doing so to race against each other we must individually overcome ourselves our fears our laziness or lack of self-discipline and it is entirely possible for someone to lose the competition against the other rowers indeed to come in last but in the process of doing so to have triumphed in the petition against this other self the Stoics as we have seen recommend simplifying one's lifestyle like programs of voluntary discomfort lifestyle simplification is a process best left to advanced Stoics as I have explained a novice stoic will probably want to keep a low philosophical profile if you start dressing down people will notice likewise people will notice if you keep driving the same old car or horrors' give up the car to take the bus or ride a bike people will assume the worst impending bankruptcy perhaps or even the early stages of mental illness and if you explain to them that you have overcome your desire to impress those who aren't impressed by a person's external trappings you will only make matters worse when I started experimenting with a simplified lifestyle it took some getting used to when for example someone asked me where I had gotten the t-shirt I was wearing and I answered that I had bought it at a thrift store I found myself feeling a bit ashamed this incident made me appreciate Cato's manner of dealing with such feelings Kato as we have seen dressed differently as a kind of training exercise he wanted to teach himself to be ashamed only of what was really shameful he therefore went out of his way to do things that would trigger inappropriate feelings of shame in himself simply so he could practice overcoming such feelings I have lately been trying to emulate Kato in this respect since becoming a stoic my desires have changed dramatically I no longer want many of the things I once took to be essential for proper living I used to dress Natali but my wardrobe has lately become what can best be described as utilitarian I have one tie and one sport coat that I can dawn if required fortunately they are rarely required I used to long for a new car but when my 16 year old car recently died I replaced it with a 9 year old car something that a decade ago I could not have imagined myself doing the new car by the way has two things that my old car lacked a cupholder and a working radio what joy there was a time when I would have understood why someone would want to own a Rolex watch now such behavior puzzles me I used to have less money than I knew what to do with this is no longer the case in large part because I want so few of the things that money can buy I read that many of my fellow Americans are in deep financial trouble they have an unfortunate tendency to use up all the credit that is available to them and when this doesn't satisfy their craving for consumer goods to keep spending anyway 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 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 I'm 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 cellphone why go out of their way to trigger a desire because if they trigger one they can enjoy the rush that comes when they extinguish that desire by buying its object it is a rush of course that has little to do with their long-term happiness as taking a hit of heroin has to do with the long term happiness of a heroin addict having said this I should add that the reason I have so few consumer desires is not because I consciously fight their formation to the contrary such desires have simply stopped popping into my head or at any rate they don't pop nearly as often as they used to in other words my ability to form desires for consumer goods seems to have atrophied what brought about this state of affairs 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 in particular were I to acquire a new car a fine wardrobe a Rolex watch and a bigger house I am convinced that I would experience no more joy than I presently do and might even experience less as a consumer I seem to have crossed some kind of Great Divide it seems unlikely that having crossed it I will ever be able to return to the mindless consumerism that I once found to be so entertaining let me now describe a surprising side-effect of the practice of stoicism as a stoic you will constantly be preparing yourself for hardship by for example engaging in negative visualization or voluntarily causing yourself discomfort if hardship doesn't follow it is possible for a curious kind of disappointment to set in you might find yourself wishing that your stoicism would be put to the test so you can see whether you in fact possess the skills that hardship management that you have worked to acquire you are in other words like a firefighter who is practiced his firefighting skills for years but has never been called on to put out an actual fire or like a football player who despite diligently practicing all season long has never been put in a game along these lines the historian Paul vane has commented that if we attempt to practice stoicism a calm life is actually disquieting because we are unaware of whether we would remain strong in the case of a tempest likewise according to Seneca when someone attempts to harm a wise man he might actually welcome the attempt since the injuries can't hurt him but can help him so far is he from shrinking from the buffetings of circumstances or of men that he counts even injury profitable for through it he finds a means of putting himself to the proof and makes trial of his virtue Seneca also suggests that a stoic might welcome death in as much as it represents the ultimate test of his stoicism although I have not been practicing stoicism for very long I have discovered in myself a desire to have my stoicism tested I already mentioned my desire to be insulted I want to see whether I will respond to insults in a stoic ly appropriate manner I have likewise gone out of my way to put myself into situations that test my courage and willpower in part to see whether I can pass such tests and while I was writing this book an incident took place that gave me a deeper understanding of the Stoics desire to have their stoicism tested the incident in question began when I noticed flashes of light along the periphery of my visual field whenever I blinked my eyes in a dark room I went to my eye doctor and was informed that I had a torn retina and that to prevent my retina from detaching I should undergo laser surgery the nurse who prepared me for the surgery explained that the doctor would repeatedly zap my retina with a high-powered laser beam she asked whether I had ever seen a light show and said that what I was about to witness was a spectacle far more splendid than that the doctor then entered the room and started zapping me the first pops of light were indeed intense and beautiful but then something unexpected happened I stopped seeing the bursts of light I could still hear the laser popping but saw nothing indeed when the laser was finally turned off all I could see through the eye that had been operated on was a purple blob that covered my entire visual field it occurred to me that something might have gone wrong during the surgery perhaps the laser had malfunctioned and that I might as a result now be blind in one eye this thought was unsettling to be sure but after having it I detected in myself another wholly unexpected thought I found myself reflecting on how I would respond to being blind in one eye in particular would I be able to deal with it in proper stoic fashion I was in other words responding to the possible loss of sight in an eye by sizing up the stoic test potential of such a loss this response probably seems strange to you it seemed and still seems strange to me as well nevertheless this was my response and in responding this way I was apparently experiencing a predictable and some would say perverse side-effect of the practice of stoicism I informed the nurse that I could not see in the eye that had been operated on she told me at last why didn't she tell me before that this was normal and that my vision would come back within an hour it did and as a result I was deprived thankfully I think of this opportunity to have my stoicism tested unless an untimely death prevents it I will in about a decade be confronted with a major test of my stoicism I will be in my mid-60s I will in other words be on the threshold of old age throughout my life I have sought role models people who were in the next stage of life and who I thought were handling that stage successfully on reaching my 50s I started examining the 70 and 80 year olds I knew in an attempt to find a role model it was easy I discovered to find people in that age group who could serve as negative role models my goal I thought should be to avoid ending up like them positive role models however proved to be in short supply when I went to the 70 & 80 year olds I knew who and asked for advice on dealing with the onset of old age they had an annoying tendency to offer the same nugget of wisdom don't get old barring the discovery of a fountain of youth drug though the only way I can act on this advice is to commit suicide it has subsequently occurred to me that this is precisely what they were advising me to do albeit in an oblique manner it has also occurred to me that their advice not to get old Echo's Missoni is's observation that he is blessed who dies not late but well it is possible that when I am in my 70s or 80s I will conclude as the elderly people I know seem to have concluded that non-existence is preferable to old age it is also possible though that many of those who find old age to be so burdensome have themselves to blame for their predicament they neglected while young to prepare for old age had they taken the time to properly prepare themselves had they in particular started practicing stoicism it is conceivable that they would not have found old age to be burdensome instead they might have found it to be as Seneca claimed one of the most delightful stages of life a stage that is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it why was writing this book my 88 year old mother had a stroke and was banished by me as it so happens to a nursing home the stroke so weakens the left side of her body that she was no longer able to get out of bed by herself not only that but her ability to swallow was compromised making it dangerous for her to eat regular foods and drink regular liquids which might go down her windpipe and trigger a potentially fatal bout of pneumonia the foods she was served had to be pureed and the liquids she was given had to be thickened there is I discovered a whole line of thickened beverages that have been created for people with swallowing problems quite understandably my mother was unhappy with the turn her life had taken and I did my best to encourage her were i devoutly religious I might have attempted to cheer her up by praying with her or for her or by telling her that I had arranged for tens or even hundreds of people to pray on her behalf as it was though I found that the best words of encouragement I had to offer had a distinctly stoical ring to them she would for example tell me how difficult her situation was and I would quote Marcus yes they say that life is more like wrestling than like dancing that's very true she would murmur in reply she would ask which she had to do to be able to walk again I thought it was unlikely that she would ever walk again but did not say as much instead I encouraged her without giving her a lecture on stoicism to internalize her goals with respect to walking what you need to concentrate on is doing your very best when they give you physical therapy she would complain about having lost most of the function of her left arm and I would encourage her to engage in negative visualization at least you have the ability to speak I would remind her in the first days after the stroke you could only mumble back then you couldn't even move your right arm and consequently couldn't feed yourself but now you can really you have lots to be thankful for she would listen to my reaction and after a moment of reflection she would usually respond affirmatively I suppose I do the exercise in negative visualization seemed to take the edge off her distress if only temporarily time after time during this period I was struck by how natural and appropriate it is to invoke stoic principles to help someone cope with the challenges of old age and ill health I mentioned above that the stroke made it dangerous for my mother to drink regular on thickened water being denied water made her quite naturally start to crave it she would ask me in a pleading voice for a glass of water not thick but from the sink I would refuse the requests and explain why but as soon as I finished my explanation she would ask again just a glass of water please I found myself in the position of a loving son who was continually denying his elderly mother's request for a simple glass of water after enduring my mother's pleas for a time I asked the nurse what to do give her ice cubes to suck on she said the water in the ice will be released slowly so there is little danger that she will aspirate it as a result of this advice I became my mother's personal ice man bringing a cup on each visit the Iceman Cometh I would call out on arriving at her room I would pop a cube into her mouth and she would while sucking it tell me how wonderful the ice was my mother who in her prime had been a connoisseur of fine food and drink had now become a connoisseur of ice cubes something she had taken for granted her entire life for her an ice cube had merely been the thing you used to cool the beverage worth drinking was now giving her intense pleasure she clearly enjoyed this ice more than a gourmet would enjoy vintage champagne watching her suck appreciatively on ice cubes I felt a tinge of envy wouldn't it be wonderful I thought to be able to derive this much pleasure from a simple ice cube it is I decided unlikely that negative visualization alone would enable me to appreciate ice cubes as intensely as my mother does unfortunately it would probably take a stroke like hers to do the trick nevertheless watching her suck on ice cubes has been quite instructive it has made me cognizant of yet another thing that I take uh turley for granted my ability to go down a big glass of cold water on a hot summer day during one visit to my mother I encountered the ghost of Christmas future I was walking down the hall of the nursing home toward my mother's room ahead of me was an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair being pushed by an attendant when I got close the attendant got my attention and said pointing to her charge this man is a professor to my mother it turns out had been telling everyone about me I stopped and said hello to this fellow academic who it turned out had retired some time before we chatted for a while but during our conversation I was haunted by the thought that in a few decades time I might have this conversation again only then it would be me in the wheelchair and it would be some younger professor standing in front of me taking a few moments out of his busy day to talk to an academic relic my time is coming I told myself and I must do what I can to prepare for it the goal of stoicism as we have seen is the attainment of tranquillity readers will naturally want to know whether my own practice of stoicism has helped me attain this goal it has not alas allowed me to attain perfect tranquillity it has however resulted in my being substantially more tranquil than was formerly the case in particular I have made considerable progress in taming my negative emotions I am less prone to anger than I used to be and when I find myself venting my anger at others I am much more willing to apologize than was formerly the case I am not only more tolerant of put-downs than I used to be but have developed a near complete immunity to garden-variety insults I am also less anxious than I once was about the disasters that might befall me and in particular about my own death although the real test for this as Seneca says will be when I am about to take my last breath having said this I should add that although I may have tamed my negative emotions I have not eradicated them nor is it likely that I ever will I am nevertheless delighted to have deprived these emotions of some of the power they used to have over me one significant psychological change that has taken place since I started practicing stoicism is that I experience far less dissatisfaction than I used to apparently as the result of practicing negative visualization I have become quite appreciative of what I've got there remains to be sure the question of whether I would continue to be appreciative if my circumstance has changed dramatically perhaps without realizing it I have come to cling to the things I appreciate in which case I would be devastated to lose those things I won't know the answer to this question of course until my stoicism is put to the test one other discovery I have made in my practice of stoicism concerns joy the joy the Stoics were interested in can best be described as a kind of object lists enjoyment an enjoyment not of any particular thing but of all this it is a delight in simply being able to participate in life it is a profound realization that even though all this didn't have to be possible it is possible wonderfully magnificently possible for the record my practice of stoicism has not enabled me to experience unbroken joy far from it nor have I experienced the higher kind of joy that a stoic sage might experience a joy at the realization that his joy cannot be disrupted by external events but my practice of stoicism does seem to have made me susceptible to periodic outbursts of delight in all this it is curious but when I started experiencing these outbursts I wasn't quite sure what to make of them should I embrace my feelings of joy or hold them at arm's length indeed should I as a sober minded adult attempt to extinguish them I have since discovered that I am NOT alone and being suspicious of feelings of joy then it dawned on me what utter foolishness it would be to do anything other than embrace them and so I have these comments I realized make me sound disgustingly self-satisfied and boastful to boot rest assured that the practice of Stoicism does not require people to go around telling others how delighted they are to be alive or about the outbursts of joy they have lately been experiencing indeed the Stoics doubtless would have discouraged this sort of thing why then am i telling you about my state of mind because it answers the question you naturally have does stoicism deliver the psychological goods it promises in my case it did to a more than satisfactory extent having made this point though I will in the future do my best to be admirably modest in any public assessments I offer regarding my state of mind although I am a practicing stoic let me confess in these closing paragraphs that I have some misgivings about the philosophy according to the Stoics if I seek tranquility I need to give up other goals that someone in my circumstances might have such as to own an expensive late-model car or to live in a million-dollar home but what if everyone else is right and the Stoics are wrong there is a chance that I will someday look back on what I will then term my stoic phase and be both baffled and dismayed what was I thinking I will ask myself if only I could have those years back I am NOT the only stoic to harbor such doubts in his essay on tranquillity for example Seneca has an imaginary conversation with Serena's a stoic with misgivings about stoicism when Serena says been among people with normal values for example after he is dined in a house where one even treads on precious stones and riches are scattered about in every corner he discovers within himself a secret sting and the doubt whether the other life is not better the above comments make it clear that I too have felt this secret sting it doesn't help that those who think fame and fortune are more valuable than tranquility vastly outnumber those who like myself think tranquility is more valuable can all these other people be mistaken surely I am the one making the mistake at the same time I know thanks to my research on desire that almost without exception the philosophers and religious thinkers who have contemplated life and the way people normally live it have come to the conclusion that it is the vast majority of people who are making a mistake in their manner of living these thinkers have also tended to gravitate toward tranquility as something very much worth pursuing although many of them disagreed with the Stoics on how best to pursue it when I start having second thoughts about stoicism my current practice is to recall that we live in a world in which certainty is possible only in mathematics we live in other words in a world in which no matter what you do you might be making a mistake this means that although it is true that I might be making a mistake by practicing stoicism I might also be making a mistake if I reject stoicism in favor of some other philosophy of life and I think the biggest mistake the one made by a huge number of people is to have no philosophy of life at all these people feel their way through life by following the promptings of their evolutionary programming by assiduously seeking out what feels good and avoiding what feels bad by doing this they might have a comfortable life or even a life filled with pleasure the question remains however whether they could have a better life by turning their back on their evolutionary programming and instead devoting time and energy to acquiring a philosophy of life according to the Stoics the answer to this question is that a better life is possible one containing perhaps less comfort and pleasure but considerably more joy I suspect that in coming decades should I live that long whatever doubts I may have had about stoicism will fall by the wayside as the aging process takes its toll stoic techniques can improve a life when times are good but it is when times are bad that the efficacy of these techniques becomes most apparent if I find stoicism to be beneficial in my sixth decade of life I am likely to find it to be indispensable in my eighth or ninth decade unless I am an unusual person my biggest tests in life lie ahead I will I think be glad to have developed an understanding and appreciation of stoicism before these tests are administered it would be nice to have a proof that stoicism or some other philosophy of life is the correct philosophy unfortunately the proof offered by the Stoics is unconvincing and an alternative proof is unlikely to be forthcoming in the absence of such a proof we must act on the basis of probabilities for a certain kind of person for a person in certain circumstances with a certain personality type there are many reasons to think that stoicism is worth a try practicing stoicism doesn't take much effort indeed it takes far less effort than the effort one is likely to waste in the absence of a philosophy of life one can practice stoicism without anyone's being any the wiser and one can practice it for a time and then abandon it and be no worse off for the attempt there is in other words little to lose by giving stoicism a try as one's philosophy of life and there is potentially much to gain indeed according to Marcus it is possible through the practice of stoicism to gain a whole new life

Channel: Syed Hasan Two

Views: 747,099

Rating: 4.8753738 out of 5

Keywords: Stoicism, Daily Life, How To Practice, Tim Ferriss, Daily Stoic, Stoic, Darren Brown, Jed Mckenna, Eckhart, Self Help

Id: gmmvMfhOH0Y

Length: 53min 22sec (3202 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 02 2018