Modern introductions to Stoic philosophy as a way of life
Modern introductions to Stoic philosophy as a way of life
According to Amazon.com, these are the five bestselling books on modern Stoicism. They’re all popular introductory texts rather than academic ones. I’ve not included the ancient primary sources, the most widely-read of which are The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, The Moral Letters (to Lucilius) of Seneca, and The Discourses and Handbook of Epictetus.
I usually suggest reading The Meditations first and then the Handbook of Epictetus. However, if you want to learn about modern Stoicism, apart from reading the classics, I’d recommend taking a look at all five of the titles below.
This is certainly the most popular book currently available on Stoicism. It consists of short daily readings, which can be studied over the course of a year.
Hanselman has provided many original translations of ancient Stoic sources, including some lesser known ones. There are several gems from the Stoic sayings of Zeno, and from the often-overlooked plays of Seneca.Holiday provides daily reflections and commentary on the passages quoted.
Each month is assigned a different theme, with daily readings on its different aspects. It also serves therefore as a convenient introduction to some of the most important passages in the ancient Stoic writings themselves, as well as provide a resource for modern day practice and contemplation. There’s also a popular Daily Stoic Journal, companion text. The Daily Stoic on Amazon
This was my own fourth book on Stoicism. It tells the story of Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ life, drawing on the surviving Roman histories of his reign, interweaving anecdotes about his life with examples of his use of Stoic philosophy as a way of coping with various emotional challenges.
These include conquering bad habits and unhealthy desires, coping with pain and illness, managing anger, overcoming fear, and dealing with loss and the consciousness of our own mortality — each the topic of a separate chapter in the book.
I also drew on my background as a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist to explore how ancient Stoic techniques could be used today in a manner informed by modern scientific research in the field of psychology and clinical practices in psychotherapy. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor on Amazon
This beautifully written book contains another collection of excerpts from the writings of ancient Stoics, focused on different areas of life, with commentary from the author.
The content consists of quotations from various relevant authors — from Epictetus and Cicero to Montaigne and Schopenhauer. Some of these were taken from existing translations and some are new. They’re organized thematically in chapters about the topics of judgement, externals, perspective, death, desire, wealth and pleasure, what others think, valuation, emotion, adversity, virtue, and learning.
It concludes with a chapter called Stoicism and its critics which addresses common criticisms and misconceptions of Stoicism, such as the idea that Stoics are cold-hearted, unemotional, or lacking compassion. The Practicing Stoic on Amazon
This is perhaps the first major bestselling book on Stoicism in daily life. It’s written in a very readable and accessible style and has many good ideas and interesting personal observations.
Irvine does reject some of the fundamental principles of ancient Stoicism, so it’s not really a guide to the original philosophy. “The resulting version of Stoicism,” he writes, “is in various respects unlike the Stoicism one would have been taught to practice in an ancient Stoic school.”
Nevertheless, the book contains advice on psychological techniques derived from, if not identical to, the teachings of ancient Stoicism. These include: negative visualization, the dichotomy of control, Stoic fatalism, self-denial, and meditation. It’s an easy book to read and contains many examples of Stoicism applied to everyday life. A Guide to the Good Life on Amazon
This book recounts Pigliucci’s initial introduction to Stoicism and his experiments embracing it as a personal philosophy of life.
Pigliucci takes Epictetus as his guide and his account of applying Stoicism in daily life is structured around the threefold distinction between the Discipline of Desire, Discipline of Action and Discipline of Assent found in The Discourses. It contains down-to-earth anecdotes about Pigliucci’s use of Stoicism to cope with various emotionally challenging situations that he faced.
The book concludes with a chapter describing a dozen Stoic psychological exercises, which will be of considerable practical value to most readers. How to be a Stoic on Amazon
I’d also like to mention Ryan Holiday’s bestselling trilogy of books: The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy and Stillness is the Key. These are also excellent modern introductions. The author describes them, though, as books influenced by Stoicism rather than ones about Stoicism. The Daily Stoic is Holiday’s book focused on the philosophy of Stoicism itself.
Attention (prosochê) is the fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude. It is a continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self-consciousness which never sleeps, and a constant tension of the spirit. Thanks to this attitude, the philosopher is fully aware of what he does at each instant, and he wills his actions fully. (Hadot, 1995, p. 84)
Ancient Stoic philosophy contains a bewildering array of psychological practices. In my first book on the subject, The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (2010), I tried to provide an overview of them and counted about eighteen altogether. I’ve often asked myself, though, which is the most fundamental psychological technique of Stoicism — the one that people should focus on learning first.
There are certainly different ways of approaching this question. However, one obvious answer comes from looking at the famous Handbook (Encheiridion) of Epictetus. The opening sentence says: “Some things are up to us and other things are not.” Modern Stoics call this “The Dichotomy of Control” and it can reasonably be said that this premise is the psychological foundation upon which the rest of the Handbook builds. The Earl of Shaftesbury, an early modern scholar of Stoicism, called it the “sovereign precept” of Stoicism.
In his discourse On Attention, Epictetus elevates this precept to a daily practice of continual Stoic mindfulness. The Greek word used here for “attention” is prosochê (προσοχή). In modern Greece it’s often used on warning signs where in English we might write “Caution!” or “Beware!” — pay attention, in other words. Epictetus, though, appears to be specifically describing attention to our ruling faculty (hegemonikon), i.e., our use of value judgements. The most important criterion to which Stoics must pay attention when making value judgements is that only what is up to us, our own volition, can be truly good or bad — everything else is (ultimately) indifferent.
Epictetus on Losing Attention
Epictetus begins by warning his students that when they have allowed their attention to lapse in this regard, they cannot simply recover it whenever they choose to do so. They should bear in mind that by failing to pay attention today to the most important things, our lives will be worse tomorrow. What causes most trouble in life is getting into the habit of not paying attention to our ruling faculty at certain times, which further leads to the habit of postponing paying attention at other times, and so on. Epictetus warns his student that to postpone paying attention in this way is to postpone the fundamental goal of life — which Stoics call “living in agreement with Nature”. It also means we’re putting off engaging in proper conduct, and achieving our own true fulfilment and flourishing as human beings (eudaimonia).
Epictetus’ students appear to have felt that it might be in their interests sometimes to delay making the effort to pay attention in this regard. They say they lose themselves in play or singing and become forgetful of how they’re using their ruling faculty to make value judgements. Epictetus argues that if it were good for them to abandon paying attention sometimes it would surely be even more beneficial to stop doing so completely. However, if it’s not generally profitable to let our attention wander, he asks, why not maintain it constantly? Epictetus tells his students that they could have played or sang while continuing to pay attention to their own ruling faculties.
Is there any part of life to which attention does not extend? Will you do anything in life worse by using attention and better by not attending at all? And what things in life are done better by those who do not do them with attention? Does he who works in wood work better by not paying attention? Does the captain of a ship manage it better by not attending?
When we have let our mind loose, he says, by allowing our attention to lapse, we no longer have the power to recall it to reason whenever we choose but rather we allow ourselves to be driven by our instincts.
The famous Daoist scripture Dao de Jing said that the wise man is “cautious like someone crossing a wintry stream”. Epictetus likewise says in the Encheiridion that just as someone walks very cautiously when he has to take care not to step on a sharp object or sprain his foot, the Stoic is always mindful, in his every act, not to harm the ruling faculty of his own mind by lapsing into folly or vice. Epictetus’ own Stoic teacher, Musonius Rufus, likewise said very bluntly that we should never relax our attention because “to let one’s mind go lax is, in effect, to lose it” (Sayings, 52). To abandon mindfulness is, in a sense, to become mindless.
Attention to What?
To what should Stoics pay attention, he asks his students. First and foremost, to the general principles of their philosophy, which they should have ready-to-hand at all times — neither falling asleep, awakening in the morning, eating, drinking, nor conversing with other people without having these basic precepts in mind. In particular, he says that we should continually pay attention to the fact that “no man is master of another man’s will, but that in the will alone is the good and the bad.” In other words, Stoics should be continually mindful of the fact that other people’s actions, or opinions, are ultimately indifferent to them, because all that matters is that their own mind is in agreement with Nature, by which the Stoics mean that they’re living in accord with reason and virtue. As long as I pay attention to this basic realization, I have no cause to be disturbed by external events. As Epictetus says elsewhere, “It’s not events that upset us but our judgements about them” (Encheiridion, 5).
He gives his students a simple example. Suppose that I get the impression that another person isn’t very pleased with me — he’s annoyed with me. The Stoic, paying continual attention to his own ruling faculty, should ask himself: “Is his opinion up to me then?” No, it’s not. My opinion of him is up to me, however, and I should remember to take full responsibility for how I choose to view things. Why should I be disturbed therefore as long as I remember to pay attention to the fact that his opinions aren’t truly up to me? Epictetus actually says his students should only be concerned how God (Zeus) might judge them or perhaps those who are “close to him”, i.e., the wise.
When we firmly grasp that some conclusion necessarily follows logically from a premise, we don’t care for any man who says the opposite. Seeing plainly that 1+1=2, we ignore any fool who tries to convince us otherwise. Why then, asks Epictetus, do we allow ourselves to become upset by those who blame us, and swayed by their opinions of us. Rather we should firmly grasp the fact that virtue is the only true good, which means that other people’s opinions of us — whether they praise or censure — are ultimately indifferent to us. The majority of people don’t know right from wrong, so we should be as indifferent to their opinions as a shoemaker would be to the advice of someone who knows nothing about making shoes. We shouldn’t, in other words, be easily swayed by praise or blame coming from ignorant people with regard to the most important things in life. We have to depend upon our own judgement and that requires unwavering attention to the use we make of it.
Wisdom and Justice
We should therefore always have these basic rules of Stoicism ready-to-hand, paying attention to them continually, and training ourselves to undertake every daily task in this manner. Our mind should be kept focused on the fundamental goal of “living in agreement with Nature”, which means “pursuing nothing external, and nothing which is up to others.” Rather we should pursue our own flourishing, first and foremost, by remembering that we are rational beings, and aiming to live with wisdom.
We can deal in external things (“preferred indifferents”), to some extent, but only insofar as it is reasonable to do so, without becoming emotionally attached to them. Elsewhere Epictetus compares this to players in a game throwing a ball to one another and catching it. Virtue consists in handling externals in the same sportsmanlike way, being willing to catch the ball when it’s thrown and to throw it to another when it’s appropriate to do so.
We should also remember therefore that we are social beings, and what our duties are with regard to other people, both as individuals and communities. Applying moral wisdom to our relationships constitutes the Stoic virtue of justice. We must discern when it is appropriate to play or sing, Epictetus says, and in whose presence, and what the likely consequences of doing so will be.
We must continually pay attention, however, so that we can interact with other people, in our various social roles, without compromising our own moral character and damaging our fundamental wellbeing. We must realize that true harm comes to us, says Epictetus, not from anything external but from our own thoughts and actions. As the Stoics repeatedly like to say, passions such as excessive fear and anger do us more harm than the things we’re upset about.
Conclusion: Nobody is Perfect
Epictetus concludes by reassuring his students: the Stoics concede that nobody is perfect. It’s impossible, even through continual attention, to free our minds completely from vices and passions. Nevertheless, it is within our power to direct our efforts to being perfect. That’s the connotation of the very word “philosopher”, which literally means “love of wisdom”. No man can claim to be perfectly wise but we should nevertheless all aspire to become so — we should all love wisdom. We should be content, says Epictetus, if by continual attention, and the continual desire to live wisely, we at least escape a handful of errors — because we’re talking about the most important errors in life.
When you say that “tomorrow I will begin to pay attention” (to reason and the fundamental goal of life) you should always remember that you are implicitly saying that today you will let yourself be irrational, shameless, and vicious. Today, asks Epictetus, will you then be passionate and envious, and needlessly allow others to cause you pain? “If it is good to pay attention tomorrow,” he says, “how much better is it to do so today?” And because we are creatures of habit, tomorrow it will become easier to pay attention appropriately if I have already done so today.
This is a slightly revised version of a script that I wrote many years ago, which was published in my first book on Stoicism and psychotherapy, The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy in 2010 — a revised 2nd edition of which is due for publication in 2019.
Take a moment to settle into your posture and make yourself comfortable… Close your eyes and relax… [Pause.] Be aware of your breathing… Notice the rhythm of the breath… Do nothing for a while, just be content to contemplate your breathing more deeply… [Pause.] Now, begin by paying attention to the whole of your body as one… From the top of your head, all the way down into your fingers and down into your toes… Be aware of your body as one… every nerve, muscle and fibre… Don’t try to change anything. Don’t try to stop anything from changing… Some things can change just by being observed…
Be content to notice whatever you notice, and feel whatever you feel… Be a passive, detached observer… As you continue to relax, turn your attention deeper within… Become more aware of your body… and imagine how you would appear right now if you could just take a step back and look at yourself… Begin to picture yourself as if seen from the outside… It really doesn’t matter how vividly you can see yourself, it’s just the intention — the idea — that matters. Imagine your body posture… your facial expression… the colour and style of your clothing…
Now keep looking at the image of yourself resting there, and imagine leaving the ground as you gaze down at your body. You begin floating serenely upwards, slowly and continuously, rising upwards. All the while your gaze keeps returning to your body, which remains there below you as you rise above it. Keep looking down toward your body as you float higher and higher…. The roof and ceiling disappear, allowing you to float freely upward. Looking down you see yourself relaxing comfortably below in the building… You appear contemplative and contented. You can see all the rooms, and any other people around you.
As you continue to float gently higher and higher, your perspective widens more and more until you see the whole surrounding area. You see all the buildings nearby from above. You see the people in buildings and in the streets and roads. You observe people far below working, or walking along the pavement, people cycling or driving their cars, and those travelling on buses and trains. You begin to contemplate the whole network of human lives and how people everywhere are interacting with each other, influencing each other, encountering each other in different ways…
Floating higher, people become as small as ants below. Rising up into the clouds, you see the whole of the surrounding region beneath you. You see both towns and countryside, and eventually the coastline begins coming into view as your perspective becomes more and more expansive… You float gently up above the clouds and through the upper atmosphere of the planet Earth… So high that you eventually rise beyond the sphere of the planet itself, and into outer space… You look toward planet Earth and see it suspended in space before you, silently turning… resplendent in all its majesty and beauty…
You see the whole planet… the blue of the great oceans… and the brown and green of the continental land masses… You see the white of the polar ice caps, north and south… You see the grey wisps of cloud that pass silently across the surface of the Earth… Though you can no longer see yourself from so far above, you know and feel that you are down there on Earth below, and that your life is important, and what you do with your life is important. Your change in perspective may even begin to change your view of things, your values and priorities…
You contemplate all the countless living beings upon the Earth. The population of the planet is over seven billion people… You realise that your life is one among many, one person among the whole human race… You think of the rich diversity of human life on Earth. The many languages spoken by people of different races, in different countries… people of all different ages… newborn infants, elderly people, people in the prime of life… You think of the enormous variety of human experiences… some individuals right now are unhappy whereas some are happy… and you realise how richly varied the tapestry of human life before you actually is.
And yet as you gaze upon the planet Earth you are also aware of its position within the rest of the universe… a tiny speck of stardust, adrift in the immeasurable vastness of cosmic space… This world of ours is merely a single planet, a tiny grain of sand by comparison with the endless tracts of cosmic space… a tiny rock in space, revolving around our Sun… the Sun itself just one of countless billions of stars which punctuate the velvet blackness of our galaxy…
You think about the present moment on Earth and see it within the broader context of your life as a whole. You think of your lifespan in its totality… You think of your own life as one moment in the enormous lifespan of mankind… Hundreds of generations have lived and died before you… many more will live and die in the future, long after you yourself are gone… Civilisations too have a lifespan; you think of the many great cities which have arisen and been destroyed throughout the ages… and your own civilisation as one in a series… perhaps in the future to be followed by new cities, peoples, languages, cultures, and ways of life…
You think of the lifespan of humanity itself… Just one of countless billions of species living on the planet… Mankind arose roughly two hundred thousand years ago… animal life itself first appeared on Earth over four billion years ago… Contemplate time as follows… Realise that if the history of life on Earth filled an encyclopaedia a thousand pages long… the life of the entire human race could be represented by a single sentence somewhere in that book… just one sentence…
And now think of the lifespan of the planet itself… Countless billions of years old… the life of the planet Earth too has a beginning, middle, and end… Formed from the debris of an exploding star, unimaginably long ago… one day in the distant future its destiny is to be swallowed up and consumed by the fires of our own Sun… You think of the great lifespan of the universe itself… the almost incomprehensible vastness of universal time… starting with a cosmic explosion, a big bang, immeasurable ages ago in the past… Perhaps one day, at the end of time, this whole universe will implode on itself and disappear once again…
Contemplating the vast lifespan of the universe, remember that the present moment is but the briefest of instants… the mere blink of an eye… the turn of a screw… a fleeting second in the mighty river of cosmic time… Yet the “here and now” is important… standing at the centre point of all human experience… Here and now you find yourself in the midst of living time… Though your body may be small in the grand scheme of things, your imagination, the human imagination, is as big as the universe… bigger than the universe… enveloping everything that can be conceived…
You contemplate all things, past, present and future… You see your life within the bigger picture… the total context of cosmic time and space… You see yourself as an integral part of something much bigger, something truly vast, the “All” itself… Just as the cells of your own body work together to form a greater unity, a living being, so your body as a whole is like a single cell in the organism of the universe… Along with every atom in the universe you necessarily contribute your role to the unfolding of its grand design…
As your consciousness expands, and your mind stretches out to reach the vastness of eternity… Things change greatly in perspective… and shifts occur in their relative importance… Trivial things seem trivial to you… Indifferent things seem indifferent… The significance of your own attitude toward life becomes more and more apparent… you realise that life is what you make of it… You learn to put things in perspective, and focus on your true values and priorities in life… One stage at a time, you develop the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference… You follow nature… your own true nature as a rational, truth-seeking human being… and the one great Nature of the universe as a whole…
Now in a moment you are going to begin sinking back down to Earth, toward your place in the here and now… Part of you can always remain aware of the view from above, though… Whenever you like, you can return to and remember that perspective and the feeling of serenity it brings…
Now you begin your descent back down to Earth, to face the future with greater confidence and equanimity… You sink back down through the sky… down… down… down… toward the local area… down… down… down… into this building… down… down… down… You sink back gently into your body… all the way now… as your feet slowly come to rest upon the floor once again…
Now think about the room around you… Think about action… movement… think about looking around and getting your orientation… raising your head a little… Begin to breathe a little bit more deeply… a little bit more energetically… let your body feel more alive and ready for action… breathe energy and vitality into your body… breathe a little deeper and deeper again… until you’re ready to take a deep breath, open your eyes, and emerge from meditation… taking your mindfulness and self-awareness forward into life… beginning now… take a deep breath… and open your eyes now… when you’re ready… entering the here and now with deep calm and serenity…
What’s the Best Version of The Meditations to Read First?
What’s the Best Version of The Meditations to Read First?
If thou would’st master care and pain, Unfold this book and read and read again Its blessed leaves, whereby thou soon shalt see The past, the present, and the days to be With opened eyes; and all delight, all grief, Shall be like smoke, as empty and as brief.
This epigram is found at the end of a Vatican manuscript of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. It captures the perennial appeal of the book, which is that it offers a way to “master care and pain” by providing philosophical insights that promise to elevate our minds above worldly concerns, both the things we crave and those we fear.
One of the questions people ask me most often is: “Which edition of The Meditations would it be best for me to read first?” There are many translations of Marcus Aurelius available. Here are three that I would recommend to most readers.
Gregory Hays
ISBN: 9780812968255. Meditations: A New Translation (2003) by Gregory Hays is published by Modern Library, a division of Random House. It’s available in paperback and ebook formats. (Goodreads)
This is the most popular modern translation of The Meditations. It’s concise but very engaging and accessible, written in a style well-suited to lay readers.
Robin Hard
ISBN: 0199573204. Meditations: With Selected Correspondence(2011) is by Robin Hard, with an introduction and commentary by Christopher Gill, professor emeritus of ancient thought at the University of Exeter, and is published by Oxford University Press. It’s available in paperback and ebook formats. (Goodreads)
This is arguably a more literal and authoritative translation, with useful notes, more suited perhaps to readers who wish to make a closer study of the text. It also contains valuable excerpts from the correspondence between Marcus and his rhetoric tutor Marcus Cornelius Fronto.
George Long
ISBN: 0857088467.Meditations: The Philosophy Classic(2019) is my own modernized version of the classic George Long translation, published by Capstone Classics, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons. It’s available as a deluxe hardback edition. This is the only hardback of the three. However, I believe that, like other books in this series, it will eventually be available also in paperback, audiobook, and ebook versions. (Goodreads)
I was commissioned to update the much-loved translation first published by English classical scholar George Long in 1862, and turn it into plain English based on a close reading of the original Greek and comparison with more recent translations. It also includes my introductory essay on the life of Marcus Aurelius and the basic principles of his Stoic philosophy.
About Audiobooks
Several people have asked me about audiobook versions of The Meditations. It’s tricky because there as far as I’m aware there are no audiobook versions available of the Hard or Hays translations, although there may eventually by one for my version of the Long translation. There are versions of The Meditations for sale on Audible which don’t specify the translator. I’m guessing they’re all based on old public domain translations, probably Long’s in most cases. There are also paraphrases of The Meditations, such as this recent one recorded by Shane Stott called Meditations Made Simple.
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019) is published by St. Martin’s Press in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats. This is a brief summary of the contents. At the end you’ll find a special bonus video, featuring an interview about Marcus Aurelius filmed at Carnuntum.
Introduction
The introduction explains how I came to write the book, drawing on my background in academic philosophy and training as a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, after nearly twenty years of writing and teaching Stoicism. It discusses the modern growth of interest in Stoicism, including the activities of the Modern Stoicism organization. It also explains how the idea for the book came from my experience of telling my young daughter, Poppy, stories about ancient philosophy.
1. The Dead Emperor
The first chapter opens with the death of Marcus Aurelius. I wanted to start the book with something dramatic. Each chapter begins with a story about some major event in Marcus’ life, based on the information we have from the various Roman histories of his reign.
In most of the chapters that leads into a discussion of Stoic philosophy and psychology and the concepts and techniques he used to cope with various problems such as anger, anxiety, pain, and so on. Then there’s a detailed discussion of how Stoic techniques can actually be applied today, drawing on my experience as a cognitive-behavioural therapist and the relevant scientific research. However, the first chapter is slightly different because after describing the events surrounding Marcus’ death in some detail, it proceeds to give the reader a short introduction to Stoic philosophy.
The story of Stoicism begins with Zeno of Citium, the founder of the school, and so you’ll be introduced to various anecdotes about him and other famous Stoics. Then we focus on what the Stoics actually believed: the core doctrines of the philosophy followed by Marcus throughout his entire adult life. And we’ll address some common misconceptions about Stoicism, such as the idea that Stoics were unemotional or joyless, which is false. I tried to keep the explanation of Stoicism in this chapter as simple as possible but after reading it you should have a pretty clear idea of who the Stoics were and what they believed. Then you’ll be well prepared to begin delving into the application of Stoicism to different areas of life. For example, in the next chapter we’ll be looking at how Stoics used language and in subsequent chapters you’ll learn how they overcame unhealthy desires and bad habits, conquered anxiety, managed anger, coped with pain and illness, came to terms with loss, and even faced their own mortality.
2. The Most Truthful Child in Rome
This chapter tells the story of Marcus’ youth and his studies in rhetoric and philosophy. He gradually shifted his attention away from the typical education offered by Sophists, and expected of a Roman noble. Instead he began pursuing the more demanding training offered by Stoic philosophers. We focus on Marcus’ Stoic teacher Apollonius of Chalcedon and explain some of the basic principles of Stoic psychology in this chapter.
There’s a common misconception that Stoics are unemotional so we correct that by explaining that the Stoics believed we should accept certain involuntary emotional reactions as natural and inevitable, rather than trying to suppress them. And they also actively encouraged certain healthy or positive emotions, which conformed to reason. The Stoic concept of emotion is illustrated with a remarkable anecdote about a Stoic teacher who was caught in a dangerous storm while sailing from Greece to Italy.
We look in detail at how the Stoics trained themselves to use language objectively avoiding strong value judgements and emotive rhetoric that might cause unnecessary distress. One of the basic psychological principles of Stoicism is that it’s not events that upset us but our judgements about them. So we explore specific ways in which we can learn to suspend distressing value judgements and view things more calmly and rationally, in a detached manner. We’ll look at how these psychological strategies were practised by the ancient Stoics and compare them to concepts and techniques used in modern cognitive psychotherapy.
3. Contemplating the Sage
This chapter focuses on Marcus’ relationship with his close friend and Stoic mentor, Junius Rusticus. Marcus says that Rusticus made him aware that he could benefit from Stoic psychological therapy or therapeia. The ancient Stoics actually wrote books on psychological therapy. Although they’re now lost, we do have a book by Galen, Marcus’ famous court physician, called On the Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul’s Passions, which draws inspiration from the Therapeutics of Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school.
Galen describes a process of moral correction and psychological therapy which may have resembled the sort of Stoic philosophical therapy that Marcus experienced as a youth, under the guidance of Junius Rusticus. This chapter tries to reconstruct that therapeutic approach by comparing Galen’s account with some remarks made by Marcus in The Meditations. It focuses on the way in which Stoics identified role models, such as Junius Rusticus, and how they learned to emulate their behaviour and assimilate the character traits they most admired in their heroes.
We also relate this to the advice found in The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, mentioned by Galen but also by Seneca and Epictetus. There we’re told to review our actions three times at the end of each day and ask ourselves three questions: What we did badly, What we did well, and what we omitted that could be done better in the future.
4. The Choice of Hercules
This chapter tells the story of Marcus’ adoptive brother and co-emperor, Lucius Verus. The two boys grew up together in the household of the Emperor Antoninus Pius and they both studied Stoic philosophy but over time their characters developed in quite different ways. Lucius abandoned philosophy and became known as a drunk and a poor leader. Marcus strove for excellence and continued to develop his character throughout his life by training himself rigorously in Stoic philosophy as a way of life.
We compare their paths in life to a famous allegory called The Choice of Hercules originating with the Sophist Prodicus, which was retold by Socrates, and inspired Zeno the founder of Stoicism to become a philosopher. This simple allegory was contained in a powerful speech designed to inspire young men to embrace virtue, and study philosophy, rather than giving in to easy living and vice. We also relate this to one of Aesop’s fables, which Marcus alludes to in The Meditations, about the town mouse and the country mouse. (Lucius reminds me of the town mouse and Marcus of the country mouse.)
The rest of the chapter is about how to develop awareness of our desires, evaluate them, and change bad habits where necessary, by combining ancient Stoic therapeutic strategies with concepts and techniques from modern cognitive-behavioural therapy. We do that in part by training ourselves to become more aware of the earliest signs of a desire or habit and also by carefully picturing the consequences to ourselves. That allows us to contrast the outcome if we indulge in the habit with the outcome if we exercise self-discipline and reason.
I also talk about the positive role of emotion in Stoicism and three different areas of life in which Marcus says Stoics can experience healthy feelings of joy and happiness.
5. Grasping the Nettle
This chapter begins with the story of Marcus’ chronic health problems. In the nineteenth century a cache of letters between Marcus and his rhetoric teacher Fronto was discovered and this give us glimpses of his personal life, including some complaints about health issues from both parties. These letters contrast sharply with Marcus’ later attitude toward coping with pain, as demonstrated in The Meditations. There he also happens to quote a letter by Epicurus that talks about avoiding complaints and responding wisely when suffering from an illness. It’s fascinating to compare this letter of Epicurus with the letters Marcus received from Fronto, which exhibit a much less resilient attitude toward pain.
The point I wanted to make is that Marcus’ rhetoric teacher was perhaps bound to be more expressive in complaining about his condition. Over time, though, as Marcus progressed in his studies of Stoicism he learned to adopt a much more philosophical attitude toward his own experience of physical pain and suffering.
Marcus doesn’t provide a neat list of Stoic strategies for coping with pain but by closely reviewing the text of The Meditations we can identify roughly seven different methods he employed. This chapter explores those in detail and discusses how they can be applied by us today, in a way that’s more informed by modern research on psychological coping skills.
The Stoics were also influenced by the Cynic concept of “voluntary hardship” and learning to endure pain, through repeated exposure to coping with discomfort. We explore that idea and some very striking metaphors the Cynics used to explain their concept of radical acceptance of unpleasant sensations. For instance, they said that if we try to grab a snake by the tail we’re likely to get bitten but the person who has the courage to seize it behind its head will actually be safer. These ideas about facing discomfort and radically accepting it, in order to cope better, are very similar to strategies used in modern-day mindfulness and acceptance based psychotherapy. So although they seem paradoxical at first, we have evidence that they can be very effective.
6. The Inner Citadel and War of Many Nations
This chapter opens with the story of an exceptionally dramatic battle described by the Roman historian Cassius Dio, apparently a turning point in the war on the northern frontier. He explains that Marcus’ legionaries actually clashed with the Sarmatian cavalry on the frozen surface of the River Danube, fighting them on the ice. I once heard that this scene was considered for inclusion in the Russell Crowe movie Gladiator, which features Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius. It wasn’t used in the end but it seems the ice battle scene was later recycled for a movie set in Roman Britain called King Arthur.
We explore Stoic techniques that help reduce anxiety, beginning with the so-called “reserve clause”, a mental strategy that involved adding a caveat like “Fate permitting” to every intended action. That leads naturally into the famous Stoic technique called premeditation of adversity, through which Marcus and other Stoics would mentally rehearse potential misfortunes each day in order to rehearse viewing them with philosophical indifference.
This chapter reviews seven different ways in which psychological techniques like premeditation can bring about beneficial psychological changes and help us overcome anxiety. We know that there are many different processes that mental imagery can potentially activate in our minds, for therapeutic change. We also compare Marcus’ life on the northern frontier to his memories of pleasant holidays in his family villas in Italy. He refers several times to the notion that the peacefulness of these idyllic retreats can be recaptured wherever he is, even in the mud and chaos of battle, if he knows how to detach his mind from externals, like the Stoics taught him.
This chapter reviews the connection between Stoic techniques described by Marcus and others and similar methods found in modern evidence-based psychotherapy, such as cognitive distancing, worry postponement and decatastrophizing. We know a lot more about how these techniques work now so with that research at our disposal we can be more specific about the best way to actually apply Stoic practices in modern life, in order to deal with worry and anxiety.
7. Temporary Madness
This chapter begins with the dramatic story of the civil war between Marcus Aurelius and one of his own generals, called Avidius Cassius. Although Marcus was almost universally remembered by Romans as an exceptionally wise and benevolent emperor, he clearly had some enemies. In The Meditations he mentions being surrounded by those who don’t share his values and would rather see him dead. There are other hints of conflict as well but the historical fact of the civil war provides conclusive evidence that Marcus faced political opposition from other powerful Romans during his reign. Marcus and Avidius Cassius were very contrasting characters. I think it’s fair to say that Marcus was more of a military dove and Cassius more of a hawk. Cassius seems to have thought Marcus was too weak and not aggressive enough against Rome’s enemies.
Perhaps the most striking thing about this incident is the speech that Cassius Dio says Marcus delivered to his gathered troops as they were preparing to march southeast and face the usurper’s rebel army in battle. Astoundingly, Marcus is shown pardoning everyone involved in the uprising against him. If that’s true it would undoubtedly have shocked his troops and was clearly a reflection of his Stoic principles regarding forgiveness and the folly of seeking revenge. Ironically, with a pardon on the table, and facing a superior army, the legions of Avidius Cassius lost their desire to fight. He was assassinated by his own officers bringing the civil war to an end only a few months after it had started. Marcus earned the trust of the men under his command through his wisdom and compassion. Cassius forced his will on others through violence, and his men were afraid of him but apparently not very loyal.
In this chapter we therefore explore the Stoic approach to empathy and forgiveness and look at how these provide remedies for anger. We know Marcus struggled with his own temper at first because he says so in The Meditations. He actually provides a neat list of ten therapeutic strategies for managing anger, which he calls ten “gifts from Apollo”, the god of healing. We go through this in detail in this chapter and compare them to similar methods used for anger management in modern cognitive-behavioural therapy.
The chapter concludes by returning to the story and the aftermath of the civil war. Marcus stood by his word and not only forgave most of those involved in the civil war but actually protected the family of Avidius Cassius from persecution. However, after Marcus’ death, his son Commodus, who was no philosopher and somewhat less forgiving, had them hunted down and burned alive as traitors.
8. Death and the View from Above
[This is an excerpt from the final chapter.]
Vindobona, March 17, 180 AD. The emperor beckons his guard to come close and whispers: Go to the rising sun, for I am already setting. He barely has enough strength to pronounce these words. Marcus glimpses fear in the young officer’s eyes. The guard hesitates for a moment before nodding awkwardly and returning to his post at the entrance to the imperial quarters. Marcus pulls the sheet above his head and rolls over uncomfortably, as if to go to sleep for the last time. He can feel death beckoning him on all sides. How easy it would be to slip into oblivion and be free from the pain and discomfort once and for all. The pestilence is devouring his frail old body from within.
He hasn’t eaten for days, weakening himself by fasting. Now, as the sun goes down outside everything is very quiet. His eyelids flutter, although the pain keeps him awake. The emperor slips in and out of consciousness. But he doesn’t die.
He thinks to himself, “Your eyes feel so heavy now — it’s time to let them close.” The sweet sensation of consciousness dissolving begins to creep over him . . .
I must have fallen asleep, or lost consciousness again. I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. Everything is dark. Soon it will be daybreak outside and the sparrows will sing their morning song. Spring has broken and the streams have thawed. Their waters flow into the mighty river passing by the camp outside.
The soldiers picture the spirit of the Danube as an ancient river god. He silently offers us all a lesson if only we pause to listen: all things change, and before long they are gone. You cannot step into the same river twice, Heraclitus once said, because new waters are constantly flowing through it. Nature herself is a rushing torrent, just like the Danube, sweeping along all things in her stream. No sooner has something come into existence than the great river of time washes it away again, only to carry something else into view. The long-forgotten past lies upstream from me now, and downstream waits the immeasurable darkness of the future, vanishing from sight.
I won’t be needing my medicines or physicians again. I’m relieved the fuss is over. The time has come to let the river wash me away too. Change is both life and death. We can try to stall the inevitable, but we never escape it. It’s a fool’s game,
With meats and drinks and magic spells To turn aside the stream and hold death at bay.
Looking back, it seems more obvious to me now than ever before that the lives of most men are tragedies of their own making. Men let themselves either get puffed up with pride or tormented by grievances. Everything they concern themselves with is fragile, trivial, and fleeting. We’re left with nowhere to stand firm. Amidst the torrent of things rushing past, there’s nothing secure in which we can invest our hopes.
You may as well lose your heart to one of the little sparrows who nest by the riverbank — that’s what I used to say. As soon as it’s charmed you, it will flit away, vanishing from sight. I once set my heart on my own little sparrows. I called them my chicks in their nest: thirteen boys and girls, given to me by Faustina. Now only Commodus and four of the girls are left, wearing grave faces and weeping for me. The rest were taken before their time, long ago now. At first I grieved terribly, but the Stoics taught me how to both love my children and endure when Nature reclaimed them. When I was mourning my little twin boys, Apollonius patiently consoled me and helped me slowly regain my composure. It’s natural to mourn — even some animals grieve the loss of their young. But there are those who go beyond the natural bounds of grief and let themselves be swept away entirely by melancholy thoughts and passions. The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.
Sellars is a lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London and a member of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is also the author of two other well-received books on this subject: Stoicism (2006) and The Art of Living (2009), and the editor of the recent Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition (2016). He’s one of the founder members of Modern Stoicism, the group behind Stoic Week. (For transparency: I’m a member of the same team.)
This is a very small book, only 96 pages, but that’s part of its appeal. It presents a very concise and yet authoritative account of Stoic philosophy aimed at the lay reader, although written by a leading scholar in this field. In that respect, it reminds me of Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction by Brad Inwood, professor of philosophy and classics at Yale. More and more books on Stoicism are appearing and there are many articles now on the Internet, although the quality varies and often articles and even books on this subject perpetuate basic misconceptions. Sellars’ book, like Inwood’s, helps to address this problem by presenting Stoicism in an accessible manner, while nevertheless being based upon many years of serious academic scholarship.
Lessons in Stoicism is currently available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats. (I hope the audio version helps make it accessible to a wider audience.) The table of contents provides a good flavour of the book:
The Philosopher as Doctor
What Do You Control?
The Problem with Emotions
Dealing with Adversity
Our Place in Nature
Life and Death
How We Live Together
Sellars begins by emphasizing that what I call the “medical model of philosophy”, the idea that philosophy is a psychotherapy, was explicitly stated by the Stoics and, as Sellars notes, goes back at least as far as Socrates, and quite probably even to earlier Greek philosophers. The school that placed most emphasis, though, on the notion of philosophy as a psychological therapy was Stoicism:
The philosopher, [Epictetus] says, is a doctor, and the philosopher’s school is a hospital — a hospital for souls.
It’s important to spell this out because several modern critics of Stoicism-influenced self-help have (rather bizarrely) tried to argue that modern psychotherapists, myself included, are completely wrong to interpret it in this way. The Stoics made it crystal clear, though, that they conceptualized philosophy as being, among other things, a form of medicine or therapy for the psyche. It’s not a new idea!
The task of the philosopher, conceived as a doctor for the soul, is to get us to examine our existing beliefs about what we think is good and bad, what we think will benefit us, and what we think we need in order to enjoy a good, happy life.
Sellars also dedicates a whole chapter to the fundamental Stoic doctrine that some things are up to us and other things are not. Earlier authors such as William Irvine somewhat confused readers by implying that this distinction was meant to distinguish between external things which they assume to be under our influence to varying degrees. (Hence, Irvine suggested introducing a “Trichotomy of Control”.) Sellars makes it clear, though, that Epictetus said he was distinguishing between our own voluntary judgments and everything else. Moreover, as Sellars highlights, the Stoics recognized that much, perhaps most, of what goes on in our minds is involuntary. It’s specifically our voluntary judgments, though, that they’re interested in demarcating from the rest of our experience.
Sellars also directly tackles the mistaken tendency to conflate Stoicism, the Greek philosophy, with stoicism, the modern concept of an unemotional “stiff upper-lip” coping style.
In modern English the word ‘stoic’ has come to mean unfeeling and without emotion, and this is usually seen as a negative trait.
That is definitely not what “Stoicism” means, although the two things are frequently confused, including in many articles on the subject on the Internet.
Contrary to the popular image, the Stoics do not suggest that people can or should become unfeeling blocks of stone.
The ancient Stoics themselves frequently explained that their goal was not to be unfeeling like a man made of stone, i.e., a statue. It is unnatural and inhuman for someone to be totally unemotional, as though they have a heart of stone or iron, and it is therefore unStoic.
The Stoics certainly do not envisage turning people into unfeeling blocks of stone. So, we’ll still have the usual reactions to events — we’ll jump, flinch, get momentarily frightened or embarrassed, cry — and we’ll still have strong caring relationships with those close to us. What we won’t do, however, is develop the negative emotions of anger, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, obsession, perpetual fear or excessive attachment. These are the things that can ruin a life and that the Stoics think are best avoided.
Sellars frames Stoic metaphysics and theology in relatively naturalistic terms:
The official Stoic view is that there is a rational principle within Nature, responsible for its order and animation. They call this ‘God’ (Zeus), but it is not a person, and nothing supernatural — it simply is Nature.
He compares this to the “Gaia Hypothesis” of environmentalist and futurist James Lovelock. “For the Stoics,” writes Sellars, “‘God’ and ‘Nature’ are just two different names for the same single living organism that encompasses all things.”
Sellars also helps to refute the misconception that Stoics are somehow passively fatalistic — something obviously untrue when we consider the lives of real historical Stoics such as Cato the Younger and Marcus Aurelius.
Our actions can and do make a difference. They can themselves be causes at play that contribute to the outcome of events. As one ancient source put it, fate works through us. We are ourselves contributors to fate and parts of the larger natural world governed by it.
The point the Stoics were making was basically that once things have turned out as they have there’s no point complaining or wishing that they were otherwise. Sellars rightly notes that this “philosophical attitude” toward adversity, which accepts the reality of our situation and urges us to get on with life regardless, is foundational to the ancient Stoic therapy of the passions. He quotes Marcus Aurelius:
Nature gives all and takes all back. To her the man educated into humility says: ‘Give what you will; take back what you will.’ And he says this in no spirit of defiance, but simply as her loyal subject.
Some (almost fundamentalist) modern proponents of Stoic theology are very hostile to the mere suggestion that ancient Stoics could have seriously considered any form of agnosticism. They even deny that any modern scholar would ever entertain such a view. However, that’s demonstrably not the case. Sellars, for instance, has repeatedly noted that Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius were willing to at least question the providential nature of the universe.
While Seneca stressed the providential order within Nature, Marcus focuses more on the inevitability of events. In a number of passages in his Meditations, he appears to express agnosticism on whether Nature is a rational, providential system or merely a random accumulation of atoms banging together in an infinite void. Marcus was no physicist, and his duties as emperor hardly left him time to investigate the matter in detail himself. In any case, his final view was that for practical purposes it doesn’t matter a great deal. Whether Nature is ruled by a providential deity, a cybernetic feedback system or blind fate, or is simply the chance product of atomic interactions, the response from us should always be the same: accept what happens and act in response as best we can.
Whether Providence exists or the universe is ruled by mere physical chance — “God or atoms”, as Marcus put it — either way Stoic Ethics is still the most philosophically justified philosophy of life. Whether or not we believe that the cosmos is a single living creature, which the Stoics called Zeus, what matters is that we’re able to view our own lives as part of a greater whole:
The lesson here is that we are but parts of Nature, subject to its greater forces and inevitably swept along by its movements, and we shall never be able to enjoy a harmonious life until we fully comprehend this.
Sellars broaches the subject of our own death through references to the concept of making the best use of our time, from Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life.
Learning to live well is, paradoxically, a task that can take a lifetime. The wisest people of the past, Seneca adds, gave up the pursuit of pleasure, money and success in order to focus their attention on this one task.
Sellars goes on to discuss Epictetus’ portrayal of life as a gift, which can be taken away at any moment. Rather than bitterly resent this or deny it, we should embrace our mortality and make the best use of the opportunity that life affords us to excel by cultivating wisdom and virtue.
Another all-to-common misconception of Stoicism is the idea that it’s somehow self-centred. Many modern fans of Stoicism see it in this way, unfortunately. It’s actually quite baffling because one of the major themes of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is how to live in harmony with the rest of mankind: social virtue, cosmopolitanism, brotherly love, natural affection, etc. How can anyone read The Meditations without noticing that these and similar ideas are emphasized on virtually every page?
As Sellars notes, the Stoics, like Aristotle before them, asserted that “human beings are by nature social and political animals.” Sellars, however, links this to the notion found in Epictetus, and earlier Stoics, that we have a duty to fulfill certain natural and social roles to the best of our ability, such as being a good parent, being a good spouse, doing our job well, and so on. However, our ultimate duty is to be a good human being in the broadest sense.
Beyond specific roles, such as being a parent, we might also think more broadly about being a member of a much wider community of people, and most broadly of all as simply being a member of the human race. Does this involve any duties or responsibilities? The Stoics think it does. We have a duty of care to all other human beings, and they suggest that as we develop our rationality we shall come to see ourselves as members of a single, global community of all humankind.
As Seneca puts it, we have two levels of social duty: one toward the universal city, embracing all of mankind, and another toward the specific community to which we have been assigned by accident of birth. For Stoics, to neglect our social obligations and kinship with the rest of mankind is to wrench ourselves unnaturally apart from humanity, which is essentially a pathological form of spiritual and psychological alienation. “For the Stoics,” writes Sellars, “people are people, all equal in their shared rationality and instinct for virtue.”
“This focus on sociability and equality challenges the idea”, as Sellars puts it, “that Stoics were indifferent to other people” — something which is in fact another surprisingly widespread misconception of the philosophy.
He also links this to a discussion of the Stoic doctrine that we should be cautious about the company we keep because of the effect it has upon us. It’s worth quoting in full what he says here because it bears on the modern development of Stoic communities:
So, if you are trying to develop some new, positive habits, it may be best to avoid the company of those whose lives embody everything you are trying to escape. Instead, try to spend time with those whose values you share or admire. This is one of the reasons why philosophers in antiquity tended to group together into schools. It also probably stands behind the monastic traditions of various world religions. It is why aspiring Stoics gathered together in antiquity, in places such as Epictetus’s school, and it’s why today people who want to draw on Stoicism in their daily lives are often keen to make contact with others trying to do the same, either in person or online.
Ancient Stoics did not live in a bubble, isolated from the rest of humanity. They married, had children, formed communities, taught students, wrote books, engaged in politics, fought in defence of their nations, risked and even sacrificed their lives standing up to tyrants — for the welfare of their communities and ultimately the benefit of mankind.
Every day, it seems, more entrepreneurs and leaders in the business community are becoming interested in Stoic philosophy. Stoicism offers a whole philosophy of life, which promises to help us attain not only greater emotional resilience in the face of adversity, but also a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in life, and in our work.
Marcus is remembered not merely for his long reign but for his practice of Stoicism — a school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 B.C. Stoicism counsels its adherents not to place too much importance on things outside their control. Rather than fret about the frustrations of our daily lives, the Stoics advise, it is better to bring one’s will in accord with nature and approach the present moment with composure. […] Marcus’ worldview was not an idle intellectual exercise […] but a form of wisdom forged by real-world experiences of friendship, loss and crisis. — The Wall Street Journal
The transcript of an interview about Stoicism that I did recently for Wharton business school’s radio station was published on the World Economic Forum’s website. I was asked how Stoicism works in the business community…
It’s a strange thing. I didn’t anticipate this, but one of the biggest groups of people interested in it seems to be millennials who work in the tech industry. I feel like it [kind of took] root in Silicon Valley. Where I live in Toronto, I meet a lot of young people working in software development or the tech industry in general who are particularly drawn to this philosophy.
Tim Ferriss & Ryan Holiday
Most of the younger people I meet who are into Stoicism actually say they were introduced to the philosophy through references made to it by Tim Ferriss or Ryan Holiday.
Ferriss has a whole section of his website devoted to Stoic resources, including the free PDF and (paid) audiobook versions of his own Tao of Seneca book. Tao of Seneca consists of the famous “moral letters” of Seneca to his friend and fellow-Stoic Lucilius, alongside which Ferriss has included thoughts from various “modern Stoics”. (One of the chapters in Tao of Seneca contains an interview I gave for Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic website.) Ferriss says that his own life was transformed in 2004 when he discovered the writings of Seneca.
[Stoicism] can be thought of as an operating system for thriving in high-stress environments. At its core, it teaches you how to separate what you can control from what you cannot, and it trains you to focus exclusively on the former. — Tim Ferriss, The Tao of Seneca
However, Ferriss says that in addition to building emotional resilience for coping with negative experiences in life, “Stoicism can also be used to maximize the positive”.
For this reason, Stoicism has spread like wildfire throughout Silicon Valley and the NFL in the last five years, becoming a mental toughness training system for CEOs, founders, coaches, and players alike. Super Bowl champions like the Patriots and Seahawks have embraced Stoicism to make them better competitors. In my own life, the results have been incredible. — Tim Ferriss, The Tao of Seneca
Ferriss actually says that looking back on the preceding two decades of his life, he credits “nearly all of the biggest successes — and biggest disasters averted — to my study of Stoicism and, specifically, the writing of Seneca.”
Tim Ferriss also recommends the works of Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way and co-author (with Stephen Hanselman) of The Daily Stoic. In his article Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs, Holiday writes:
For those of us who live our lives in the real world, there is one branch of philosophy created just for us: Stoicism. It doesn’t concern itself with complicated theories about the world, but with helping us overcome destructive emotions and act on what can be acted upon. Just like an entrepreneur, it’s built for action, not endless debate. — Ryan Holiday, Stoicism 101
Holiday’s bestselling books have introduced countless people to Stoicism, especially younger generations of readers. Whenever I speak to people who are into Stoicism and work in the tech industry, in particular, I can guess that they’ve probably read The Obstacle is the Way.
Business Leaders on Stoicism
Several prominent CEOs have likewise spoken about the influence of Stoic philosophy on their lives. For example, in a recent interview, Jules Evans asked Jonathan Newhouse, the CEO of Condé Nast, how he got into Stoicism.
It was 1999. I ran into Alain de Botton in a restaurant. He was having dinner with a friend of mine. He said he was working on a book of philosophy, and mentioned Seneca, who I’d never read. I went out and brought Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic. And it just blew me away. I found it impeccably logical. That led me on to Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. I read just about everything I could. Now I usually take one of the Stoic books with me when I travel. I incorporated it into my thinking and it’s shaped the way I think and interact with the world in a very positive way.
He explains very succinctly how Stoic philosophy influences his worldview:
People devote a lot of time and emotional effort to things that are beyond their control — what other people do, how other people react to them, even the weather. And they set themselves up for pain, anxiety, disappointment and fear. The Stoics recognised that it was foolish, or counterproductive, to attach oneself to things that are beyond one’s control, when there are things within one’s control — one’s thoughts, attitudes and moral purpose.
I loved the idea that you could make your goal to live a life of moral purpose. I was very taken with the ethical and moral point-of-view of Stoicism. When you read the Stoics, you often come across the word ‘virtue’. They saw the goal of the wise person as to lead a virtuous life. Today, the word ‘virtue’ is almost never heard, except ironically. If you asked 100 people what their goal was in life, hardly any would say leading a virtuous life.
Being an entrepreneur in the tech world means creating new experiences, opening untapped markets, and forging new paths. Starting a business is risky and involves charting foreign territory. That’s why I find the teachings of the Stoics important for remaining grounded through tumultuous endeavors. — Eugenio Pace in Forbes
Pace adds the following Stoic advice for coping with stress at work,
Epictetus said, “Some things are up to us, and some are not up to us.” As a fellow technology entrepreneur, founder and CEO, the best advice I have for liberating yourself from anxieties that make you less happy and productive is simple: Stop worrying about what you can’t control.
Stoicism, at its core, reminds us that life and everything in it, is impermanent. Focusing on our circumstances or pinning our happiness on the attainment of possessions is a surefire recipe for disappointment. The Stoics, such as Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, instead encourage us to free ourselves from the control such pursuits exert over us and focus on the things that are in our direct control: our thoughts, feelings, and desires. In this sense, Stoicism is uniquely suited to serve the needs of entrepreneurs. — Chris Myers in Forbes
He concludes, “In helping us to identify what we can control in our lives and to find happiness in what we already have, Stoic philosophy allows us to mute the terrible emotional roller coaster that is entrepreneurship.”
Stoicism has also been applied to quite specific challenges in the modern workplace. Adam Piercey, an engineering technologist, wrote a recent Medium article on Stoicism in Tech for Better Programming, which explores specific ways Stoicism can be used to handle stressful situations like peer review. He applies wisdom from Marcus Aurelius to the challenge of receiving critical feedback a software engineer.
As Marcus said, you should “immediately consider on the basis of what opinion about good or evil he did wrong.” If you choose to view the feedback as constructive and positive, you can learn and proceed. The Stoics believed that we should welcome criticism in this spirit and that our role is to make the best use of criticism. If you begin any feedback experience with the mindset that it comes from a place of good intentions, there is a significant opportunity to learn and grow. — Adam Piercey in Better Programming
In another Forbes article, titled Five Reasons Why Stoicism Matters Today, Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, authors of Rome’s Last Citizen, argue that Stoicism is “a philosophy for leadership”.
Stoicism teaches us that, before we try to control events, we have to control ourselves first. Our attempts to exert influence on the world are subject to chance, disappointment, and failure — but control of the self is the only kind that can succeed 100% of the time. From emperor Marcus Aurelius on, leaders have found that a Stoic attitude earns them respect in the face of failure, and guards against arrogance in the face of success. — Goodman and Soni in Forbes
[W]hat if I told you that there’s a school of philosophy dating back to ancient Greece that can help you handle all of these obstacles on a daily basis and, as a bonus, may even enrich your quality of life? And better still, you don’t have to be a scholar to figure out how to use it. It’s called Stoicism, and it’s a practical philosophy that’s used by some of today’s greatest thinkers and business minds, including Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Arianna Huffington and Jack Dorsey. — Tank in Entrepreneur
He lists the main ways in which Stoicism can help entrepreneurs as:
Setting priorities, by focusing on what’s essential
Curbing stress, by distinguishing what is up to us from what is not
Stopping procrastinating, by being aware of our own mortality and the precious nature of time
Managing fear, by premeditatio malorum or the systematic anticipation of future misfortunes
A few years ago now, Carrie Sheffield, founder of the digital media startup Bold TV, interviewed me for a Forbes article titled Want An Unconquerable Mind? Try Stoic Philosophy. She opens by stating that the ideas of ancient Stoics “hold fascinating promise for business and government leaders tackling global problems in a turbulent, post-recession slump.”
Prominent business thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb praises Stoic philosophy in his Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, a book that Stoic Week organizer Donald Robertson says nudged many curious readers toward Stoicism. Robertson, a Scottish-born therapist and classics enthusiast, led workshops on psychological resilience for managers at oil giant Shell called “How to think like a Roman Emperor,” based on the life of stoic philosopher-king Marcus Aurelius. — Sheffield in Forbes
Taleb’s bestselling book, Antifragile, mentioned above, contains a whole chapter dedicated to his Stoic hero, Seneca. Indeed, Taleb actually says that Seneca “solved the problem of antifragility […] using Stoic philosophy”. Taleb rightly emphasized that Stoic philosophy is not about being totally unemotional, rather it’s about replacing unhealthy emotions with healthy ones.
Seen this way, Stoicism is about the domestication, not necessarily the elimination, of emotions. It is not about turning humans into vegetables. My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. — Taleb, Antifragile
We went on to discuss the famous Stoic “Dichotomy of Control” and how it might be related to the psychology of leadership.
“Anyone in a leadership role must come to terms quickly with the paradox of their position: that leaders must wield power but that often so much that happens lies outside of their control,” Robertson told Forbes. “How do we accept the limits of our power without slumping into passivity?” — Sheffield in Forbes
She also asked me about common misconceptions of Stoicism.
Robertson said people sometimes confuse stoicism with submissiveness, but calls this “a very superficial misunderstanding.” Students of ancient stoicism tended to be sons from wealthy, cosmopolitan families. Many went on to rule empires or advise great leaders in commerce and war. “Can you point to a single historical stoic who sat on his hands?” quips Robertson… “It’s just not in the nature of their philosophy to be doormats or stay-at-home types.”
The Economist’s1843 Magazine ran an article recently on “Stoicism’s revival” called Life Lessons from Ancient Greece, which quoted me on the links between Stoicism and modern cognitive-behavioural therapy.
Many modern stoics argue that this doctrine has already been partially revived in the form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the “problem-focused” therapy now widely seen as psychology’s best weapon against depression, anxiety and every kind of unhelpful thinking. Like stoicism, CBT encourages practitioners to distinguish between events and perceptions, and nearly every CBT textbook contains some version of Epictetus’s dictum: “Men are disturbed not by things, but the views they take of them.” Yet although the founders of CBT openly acknowledged the influence of stoicism, they tended to adopt the techniques without reference to the wider moral framework. “Stoicism transcends most modern self-help and therapy by offering the view that much of our emotional suffering is caused by false values, such as egotism, materialism or hedonism,” says Donald Robertson, a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist who is one of the organisers of Stoic Week. — Rowland Manthorpe in The Economist
Another good source of information is Modern Stoicism, a nonprofit organization run by a multi-disciplinary team of volunteers who carry out research on Stoicism and disseminate information on its application to modern-day living. Modern Stoicism run the annual Stoicon conference and multiple Stoicon-x mini conferences in different cities around the world. They also run the annual Stoic Week online course, in which over eight thousand people took part last year. The figures from these events show that Stoicism is continuing to experience a revival and it’s often among entrepreneurs and leaders in business that it’s catching on the most.
The Leadership Qualities of a Stoic Emperor
Many of the articles above discuss ways in which the basic concepts and practices of ancient Stoicism can be of benefit in the work environment today. However, I’ve also tried exploring the relevance of Stoicism from a rather different perspective by looking at the qualities of a good ruler which Marcus Aurelius sought to learn from his adoptive father and predecessor the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.
We can summarize advice based on the leadership qualities Marcus admired as follows:
Get along with other people
Be hardworking and conscientious
Don’t seek praise or flatter others
Don’t be afraid of criticism
Be content with the simple things in life
You can read more about how Marcus defined those qualities as exemplified by the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius in my previous Medium article on the subject. They’re all consistent with the teachings of Stoicism, although Antoninus Pius himself doesn’t appear to have been a Stoic.
In his Attic Nights, the grammarian Aulus Gellius relates the following anecdote in which Herodes Atticus, a famous Sophist, criticizes the Stoic concept of apatheia, or freedom from irrational passions. However, Herodes was a notoriously quick tempered and violent individual, who stood trial (and was acquitted) of kicking his pregnant wife to death. So his own life may not be the best advertisement for his theory of the passions.
A discourse of Herodes Atticus on the power and nature of pain, and a confirmation of his view by the example of an ignorant countryman who cut down fruit-trees along with thorns.
I once heard Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, holding forth at Athens in the Greek language, in which he far surpassed almost all the men of our time in distinction, fluency, and elegance of diction. He was speaking at the time against the ἀπάθεια, or “lack of feeling” of the Stoics, in consequence of having been assailed by one of that sect, who alleged that he did not endure the grief which he felt at the death of a beloved boy with sufficient wisdom and fortitude. The sense of the discourse, so far as I remember, was as follows: that no man, who felt and thought normally, could be wholly exempt and free from those emotions of the mind, which he called πάθη, caused by sorrow, desire, fear, anger and pleasure; and even if he could so resist them as to be free from them altogether, he would not be better off, since his mind would grow weak and sluggish, being deprived of the support of certain emotions, as of a highly necessary stimulus. For he declared that those feelings and impulses of the mind, though they become faults when excessive, are connected and involved in certain powers and activities of the intellect; and therefore, if we should in our ignorance eradicate them altogether, there would be danger lest we lose also the good and useful qualities of the mind which are connected with them. Therefore he thought that they ought to be regulated, and pruned skilfully and carefully, so that those only should be removed which are unsuitable and unnatural, lest in fact that should happen which once (according to the story) befell an ignorant and rude Thracian in cultivating a field which he had bought.
“When a man of Thrace,” said he, “from a remote and barbarous land, and unskilled in agriculture, had moved into a more civilized country, in order to lead a less wild life, he bought a farm planted with olives and vines. Knowing nothing at all about the care of vines or trees, he chanced to see a neighbour cutting down the thorns which had sprung up high and wide, pruning his ash-trees almost to their tops, pulling up the suckers of his vines which had spread over the earth from the main roots, and cutting off the tall straight shoots on his fruit and olive trees. He drew near and asked why the other was making such havoc of his wood and leaves. The neighbour answered; ‘In order to make the field clean and neat and the trees and vines more productive.’ The Thracian left his neighbour with thanks, rejoicing that he had gained some knowledge of farming. Then he took his sickle and axe; and thereupon in his pitiful ignorance the fellow cuts down all his vines and olives, lopping off the richest branches of the trees and the most fruitful shoots of the vines, and, with the idea of clearing up his place, he pulls up all the shrubs and shoots fit for bearing fruits and crops, along with the brambles and thorns, having learnt assurance at a ruinous price and acquired boldness in error through faulty imitation. Thus it is,” said Herodes, “that those disciples of insensibility, wishing to be thought calm, courageous and steadfast because of showing neither desire nor grief, neither wrath nor joy, root out all the more vigorous emotions of the mind, and grow old in the torpor of a sluggish and, as it were, nerveless life.”
In this excerpt from Attic Nights, the grammarian Aulus Gellius, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius, relates an amusing anecdote. Herodes Atticus was a wealthy Sophist, known for his eloquence but also his violent temper. He was family friend of Marcus Aurelius, but also a critic of Stoicism.
The apt use made by Herodes Atticus, the ex-consul, in reply to an arrogant and boastful young fellow, a student of philosophy in appearance only, of the passage in which Epictetus the Stoic humorously set apart the true Stoic from the mob of prating triflers who called themselves Stoics.
While we were students at Athens, Herodes Atticus, a man of consular rank and of true Grecian eloquence, often invited me to his country houses near that city, in company with the honourable Servilianus and several others of our countrymen who had withdrawn from Rome to Greece in quest of culture. And there at that time, while we were with him at the villa called Cephisia, both in the heat of summer and under the burning autumnal sun, we protected ourselves against the trying temperature by the shade of its spacious groves, its long, soft promenades, the cool location of the house, its elegant baths with their abundance of sparkling water, and the charm of the villa as a whole, which was everywhere melodious with plashing waters and tuneful birds.
There was with us there at the time a young student of philosophy, of the Stoic school according to his own account, but intolerably loquacious and presuming. In the course of the conversations which are commonly carried on at table after dinner, this fellow often used to prattle unseasonably, absurdly, and at immoderate length, on the principles of philosophy, maintaining that compared with himself all the Greek-speaking authorities, all wearers of the toga, and the Latin race in general were ignorant boors. As he spoke, he rattled off unfamiliar terms, the catchwords of syllogisms and dialectic tricks, declaring that no one but he could unravel the “master,” the “resting,” and the “heap” arguments, and other riddles of the kind. Furthermore, as to ethics, the nature of the human intellect, and the origin of the virtues with their duties and limits, or on the other hand the ills caused by disease and sin, and the wasting and destruction of the soul, he stoutly maintained that absolutely no one else had investigated, understood and mastered all these more thoroughly than himself. Further, he believed that torture, bodily pain and deadly peril could neither injure nor detract from the happy state and condition of life which, in his opinion, he had attained, and that no sorrow could even cloud the serenity of the Stoic’s face and expression.
Once when he was puffing out these empty boasts, and already all, weary of his prating, were thoroughly disgusted and longing for an end, Herodes, speaking in Greek as was his general custom, said: “Allow me, mightiest of philosophers, since we, whom you call laymen, cannot answer you, to read from a book of Epictetus, greatest of Stoics, what he thought and said about such big talk as that of yours.” And he bade them bring the first volume of the Discourses of Epictetus, arranged by Arrian, in which that venerable old man with just severity rebukes those young men who, though calling themselves Stoics, showed neither virtue nor honest industry, but merely babbled of trifling propositions and of the fruits of their study of such elements as are taught to children.
Then, when the book was brought, there was read the passage which I have appended, in which Epictetus with equal severity and humour set apart and separated from the true and genuine Stoic, who was beyond question without restraint or constraint, unembarrassed, free, prosperous and happy, that other mob of triflers who styled themselves Stoics, and casting the black soot of their verbiage before the eves of their hearers, laid false claim to the name of the holiest of sects:
‘Speak to me of good and evil.’ — Listen: The wind, bearing me from Ilium, drove me to the Cicones. Of all existing things some are good, some evil, and some indifferent. Now the good things are virtues and what partakes of them, the evil are vice and what partakes of vice, and the indifferent lie between these: wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, pain.— ‘How do you know this?’ — Hellanicus says so in his Egyptian History. For what difference does it make whether you say that, or that it was Diogenes in his Ethics or Chrysippus or Cleanthes? Have you then investigated any of these matters and formed an opinion of your own? Let me see how you are accustomed to act in a storm at sea. Do you recall this classification when the sail cracks and you cry aloud? If some idle fellow should stand beside you and say: ‘Tell me, for Heaven’s sake, what you told me before. It isn’t a vice to suffer shipwreck, is it? It doesn’t partake of vice, does it?’ Would you not hurl a stick of wood at him and cry: ‘What have we to do with you, fellow? We perish and you come and crack jokes.’ But if Caesar should summon you to answer an accusation…”
On hearing these words, that most arrogant of youths was mute, just as if the whole diatribe had been pronounced, not by Epictetus against others, but against himself by Herodes.
