John Sellars

How can Stoicism inspire us to lead more enjoyable lives? In the past few years, Stoicism has been making a comeback. But what exactly did the Stoics believe? In Lessons in Stoicism, philosopher John Sellars weaves together the key ideas of the three great Roman Stoics -- Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius -- with snapshots of their fascinating lives, to show us how their ideas can help us today. In vivid prose, Sellars shows how the works of these three Stoics have inspired readers ever since, speaking as they do to some of the perennial issues that face anyone trying to navigate their way through life. Their works, fundamentally, are about how to live -- how to understand one's place in the world, how to cope when things don't go well, how to manage one's emotions and how to behave towards others. Consoling and inspiring, Lessons in Stoicism is a deeply thoughtful guide to the philosophy of a good life.

What Ancient Philosophers Teach Us about How to Live

Lessons in Stoicism

Tanbin Al Amin

What if someone told you that much of the suffering in your life was simply due to the way you think about things?

Material wealth is value-neutral, because it can be used for good or bad ends. The money in itself is neither good nor bad. Whether it is used for good or bad ends depends upon the character of the person who has it. A virtuous person can use money to do good things, while a not so virtuous individual might use it to generate great harm. What does this tell us? It shows that the real value– the source of what is good or bad– resides in the character of the person who has the money, not in the money itself. It also tells us that paying excessive attention to our money and possessions while neglecting the state of our character is a grave mistake. It is the job of the philosopher to provoke us to see this, and then to support us as we try to cure our souls of whatever infirmities they may have.

Zeno’s response was to say that it is completely natural for us to pursue things that help us to survive– food, shelter, things that maintain our health, and possessions that contribute to our physical comfort. We all do it, and there’s no reason to feel bad about it. We all pursue material prosperity because it helps to secure our survival.

we’d all prefer to be rich rather than poor, healthy rather than ill, and respected rather than despised. Of course we would; who wouldn’t? But– and this is a key point– because a virtuous character is the only thing that is truly good, we ought never to compromise our character in the pursuit of such things.

Epictetus does not say that we have control over everything internal to us or over all of our thoughts. Instead he claims that we have control only over a certain set of mental actions. To be more precise, he thinks that all we really have control over are our judgements, along with things that derive from our judgements.

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