William B. Irvine - A Guide to the Good Life
My rating: ★★★☆☆ (60%)
Irvine takes the Stoic teachings and transforms them into an accessible self-help book. The book’s greatest strength is how it distills the teachings into several practical exercises. Here are three key exercises that, when practiced daily, can make you more joyful:
Exercise 1: Negative Visualization
It’s human nature to always want more. We rarely stay satisfied for long when we get what we’ve been striving for,be it money, a romantic partner, or other possessions.
The key insight is this:
If we can learn to appreciate what we already have, we can be content with our current lives.
How do we achieve this? By imagining that we’ve lost what we already have. This can be a bit dark.
- Do you have a nice family but feel like you don’t have enough time for yourself? Imagine they all died in a car crash and see how much you mind the lack of me-time after that.
- Do you wish for a larger house? Imagine your current one burned down and you weren’t insured.
This exercise works for me.
Do you think that someone who imagines the death of their loved ones can’t enjoy life as much as someone who doesn’t? Give it a try and see for yourself. I bet you’ll be more present and grateful if you practice negative visualization.
Exercise 2: Focus on What You Can Control
Some things are up to us and some are not up to us
Epictetus
A key Stoic principle is recognizing that we don’t have control over many things. According to the Stoics, we can only truly control our impressions (thoughts and senses) and how we react to them. We can’t control anything else.
This concept is similar to Buddhist philosophy, which teaches us that our thoughts and sensations are not us and that we don’t have to react to them.
Here Irvine introduces a third category of “things that are mostly but not completely in our control”. This is where I started noticing Irvine’s interpretation diverging from how I understand the original Stoic works and started leaning more towards the self-help genre. This aspect of the book is the reason for my average rating.
But the original idea is still powerful: Once you assign value and crave or try to avoid things that are outside of your control, you’ll suffer.
When you notice you want or don’t want something, consider whether that thing is in your control or not. If it’s not, realize that you can’t keep it or avoid it forever.
- You want a great job? You can’t control that, and even if you get it, you might get fired or you might stop enjoying it.
- You want children that love you and care about you? You can’t control that; you can only control what kind of parent you are.
- You want a specific man/woman to love you? … You get the idea.
For things you can control (your reaction to thoughts, sensations, emotions), ensure you act virtuously. For things you can’t control, let them go and don’t worry about them. Why worry about something you can’t control?
Exercise 3: Live Down a Little
As opposed to living it up. Get it? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
This exercise takes negative visualization a step further by temporarily living without some of life’s comforts. Try to occasionally live without the things you enjoy. That way, you’ll find that living a life of a poor person is not that bad.
Try to underdress for cold weather, take cold showers, eat only bread or fast for a day. Give up coffee for a while. In other words, make your life a bit less comfortable.
This will have two effects:
- It will make you appreciate warm clothes, hot showers, good food, and coffee.
- It will show you that a simpler life is not that bad in case you might have to adopt it in the future.
In Closing
Irvine’s book is a solid introduction to Stoicism. Its best quality is that it’s actionable. These exercises, plus a few more, will help you deal with everyday situations. If you practice them regularly, they have the potential to make your life more joyful.