A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy — Book Summary

9 min readOct 11, 2015

Rating: 4/5

TL;DR: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy is a great read if you are interested in learning about Stoicism.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy is an invigorating representation of Stoicism that portrays how this ancient philosophy can still direct us towards a better life. The author depicts a commendable roadmap for anyone wishing to avert the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction, cultivating the ultimate tranquility by living in harmony with the divine reason and fostering a capacity for appreciating what life has to offer.

Although this book incorporates a brief history and philosophy behind the principles of stoicism, the bulk of the book elucidates actionable advice about self-improvement.

In Irvine’s opinion, everyone should have a cohesive “philosophy of life” to follow. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus their efforts on the things they can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. Here’s a breakdown of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy:

Introduction

The trepidation of looking back over our lives with remorse, despite laborious efforts and years of striving, is ingrained in our hearts. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of stoic philosophy, a plan for what we want from our lives. Without a goal, we run the risk of mis-living, of gleaning some good out of life but for most parts, wishing we had done things differently. Life is interspersed with a plethora of diversions to avert considering the question of what we truly value and the pertinent tactics required for attaining it. Philosophy can give directions to our thoughts when we are faced with conflicting goals and guide us closer to our aspirations every day.

Early philosophy was concerned with both theory and practice (affecting the way people live). The practical side withered away, but people still need guidance for living a good life. Religion does not provide a philosophy of life, but ancient philosophy does. In ancient Greece, different proponents of philosophies proffered conflicting beliefs. Cyrenaica advocated pleasure and gleaning every opportunity of experiencing it while cynics were predisposed to an ascetic lifestyle of wanting nothing.

The stoics suggested a middle ground of enjoying every aspect of life but stepping back now and then to contemplate its loss, appreciate its existence and prepare lest it ever goes away. The Stoics supported tranquility, which they saw as the absence of negative emotions like grief, anger, materialism, existential crises and anxiety, and embracing the positive impacts of joy. They were also concerned with logic and rationality, and ethics, pertaining to living a good life through virtue: living as we were designed to live without succumbing to either pain or pleasure. A wise man, a sage, lives in accordance with nature and is “godlike”. However, to be a stoic today means banishing all emotions from life.

Negative Visualization

The Stoics propose an imperative psychological technique that involves frequently contemplating future devastations, such as the loss of a beloved, material possessions or health, as if they are happening at the moment and viewing them with detached indifference. Mull over the possibility that everything we possess is a loan from fate and could be estranged anytime. This premeditation of adversity is an essential intellectual exercise. When someone visualizes a potentially devastating scenario which provokes anxiety, in a controlled manner and for a prolonged amount of time, the apprehension associated to the event tends to abate eventually.

Furthermore, imagining the loss of valuable things makes us appreciate their true value. It sheds a new perspective on life, and teaches us to cultivate desire for the things we already own, instead of fostering new desires. The goal of contemplating the impermanence of what you have is to counter-intuitively render everything a greater intensity and significance. The ancient references to this technique can be read as recognizing the phenomenon of habituation, e.g., when they refer to anticipation of feared events as a way to blunt their terrors.

Most people run on the hedonic treadmill. They realize that good and bad things happen, life temporarily becomes more or less happy, and eventually we become used to our new status quo and revert to natural levels of happiness. Stoicism negates the concept of hedonic adaptation and emphasizes on the fact that when we forestall adaptation, we avert taking things for granted. Negative visualization is akin to a near death experience, where although the occurrence is heartrending, people come out the other end with a revived zest for living and an admiration of the smallest goodness in life.

When the Stoics advocated living each day as if it were our last, they didn’t mean we should change our activities, but that we should change our state of mind as we carry out our activities. It’s far from being a debate between the glass being half full or half empty. It’s about being grateful for having a glass! This way, when things do get taken away, we won’t live with regret, but realize that we made the most of it all along.

The Trichotomy of Control

Instead of the stoic dichotomy of “things under our control” and those that aren’t, Irvine replaced it with a “Trichotomy” that classifies most things under a third concept: things which are partially under our control. If we have no power over something, worrying is senseless, as it cannot possibly affect the outcome. Whether we choose to care about external circumstances or inner struggles, it greatly defines how we perceive success. Although we have no control over the external world around us, it is easier to change ourselves and our actions.

If we do have total control over something, we are guaranteed prolific results by focusing on it. Epictetus believed we do have control over certain aspects of ourselves, such as our opinions, desires and impulses. Irvine tends to disagree with Epictetus and asserts we have total control over having the right goals and values. We can cultivate certain traits and dissuade others to leverage against our aspirations.

If we seek gains that are not up to us, we would be distressed when things don’t work out the way we want. We also feel more apprehensive during the pursuit of something we can’t control because we know we can do everything possible and still return empty-handed. This anxiety manifests itself regardless of whether we end up getting what we want. As we cannot fully determine the outcomes of our struggles, we should set internal benchmarks.

This can be construed as not winning the game but playing to the best of our ability. When you bracket together your in-house goals to worldly aspirations, you are more likely to achieve success. The greatest perk of internalizing goals is you would not be disappointed or blame yourselves for factors outside your control and lead a tranquil life, devoid of irrepressible regrets.

An interesting example by the author elucidates this method. Everybody concerns themselves with their spouses and desires to be loved and nurtured by them. However, instead of concerning yourself with their affections, you should work on developing yourself to be as loveable as you could. It’s vain hassling over whether the love is there since you cannot control anybody’s feelings. Similarly, an aspiring writer can only be fretful about being published but instead he should be concerning himself with how diligently he works for it.

Fatalism

The ancient Greeks were staunch believers of fate and that our lives are predetermined and rebelling against fate is a counterproductive act that only serves to disrupt our harmony. It construed life as a play written out by an extrinsic entity and portrayed humans as mere characters, who must play along to the best of their abilities. Thus, if one keeps a fatalistic approach about the future, splurging time and arduous efforts trying to alter the outcomes is deemed futile.

If the same approach is linked to the past, this leads to the realization that because the past cannot be changed, it’s pointless to fret over how things could have been different. This guideline also applies to the present, where while we can take actions in the present moment that could define our future, we have no control over the state of things in that moment. We can either choose to heartily embrace the present moment, with all its beautiful imperfections, or in vain wish for things to get better. Remember, things can always be worse than what you are experiencing now.

Self-Denial

This guideline stresses on the fact that in addition to occasionally contemplating the occurrence of bad events, we should sometimes actively inflict it upon ourselves. By experiencing some discomfort now, future mishaps wouldn’t traumatize us that much. When you give yourselves credit for bearing smaller discomforts, you fear future catastrophes less as a result. This generally means expanding your comfort zone to make many states of the world tolerable. E.g. eat a cheaper meal than what you are accustomed to, put off eating until famished, practice poverty, be underdressed for the cold or turn your phone off for an entire day!

Abstinence from Pleasure

Some of the ancient Stoics had a combative attitude towards pleasure, considering it the single most important battle with ourselves. It is easy to become slaves to rampant pleasure and vamp up our desires. We should practice asceticism from pleasures which could confine us to a single exposure. Abstaining from minor pleasures strengthens self-control, instills perseverance and alleviates the impacts of future distractions. By numbing our minds to the impact of pain and pleasure, we stand a better chance of retaining our rationality. Practicing stoicism develops your willpower and helps you gain more self-discipline and self-control.

Self-Reflection

Stoicism advises us to reflect upon the happenings of the day before you settle in for the night. Mull over how you responded to situations and how you should have countered instead. You simultaneously become the spectator and the participant, examine what you are doing, the motivation behind your deeds and if your actions are being governed by reason or some primitive urges. Think of this exercise as a self-mentoring introspection.

Practicing Stoicism in the Modern World

Stoicism demands considerable restraint and requires you to believe in something bigger than yourself. In the contemporary era, people’s lives revolve around trying to fulfill desires and this keeps them on the hedonic treadmill. We tend to develop new desires as soon as the last is fulfilled and forget that unhappiness stems from unfulfilled desires. We are irrevocably caught in a vicious circle. Stoicism is not about sacrifice. Rather, it’s about changing our desires and genuinely wanting different things. The author employed jargon filled easy prose to appeal to the modern readers and constructed his own version of stoicism with regards to the changing needs.

Here actionable advice offered in A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy:

Social Relations: Other people could be the source of our greatest joys or deepest sorrows and have a direct effect on our tranquility. The key to protecting your balance of life is to embrace the good people who share your values and become tolerant towards those who fall astray instead of shunning them. Manage your expectations!
Insults: People tend to lose their calm when insulted or exposed to harsh criticism. Analyze if the insult has a trace of truth to it. If so, treat it like constructive criticism. Otherwise, ignore it like the barking of a dog or just laugh it off.
Grief: When you lose something, instead of thinking about what you have lost, try to think about and be thankful for what you have.
Anger: When you feel upset, remind yourself that human life is impermanent and only lasts a moment.
Fame: Stoics avoid things which give others power over them. Being famous means you are controlled by others. You have to do things to keep your status, avoid things that will cause you to lose you fame, and so on. Fame enslaves us.
Old Age: When death is close, instead of being depressed, you can appreciate what you still have. While the young don’t value time because it seems unlimited, the elderly don’t take anything for granted.