Daily practice is the most important component that makes the adoption of a “philosophy of life” real.
Through our learning, we absorb the principles of our philosophy and prepare to act them into existence in the real world.
A vital precursor to the application of our philosophy of life is learning what goodness is.
After all, how can we begin being good if we don’t truly understand what that means?
The Stoic view is that the only true good in life is virtue. Virtue comes in four forms : Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Temperance. The virtuous person will therefore act according to all of these.
The only true bad in life, therefore, is the corruption of virtue, otherwise known as vice. The contrasting vices for each virtue then are Foolishness, Cowardice, Injustice, and Intemperance.
Virtue being good and vice being bad, everything else falls into the category of indifferents.
The Stoics held that indifferents are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. This is because they do not themselves provide benefit or harm since they can be used both in a virtuous and vicious manner.
As we know, however, Stoicism is a practical philosophy. This theory alone does not improve the skill of being good.
Only the struggle of everyday experience improves it. We’re interested in how we might be good, rather than merely know goodness.
Today, having prepared with this theory, concentrate on the practical side of your philosophy of life.
Start with small acts and build from there. Do good to feel good.
Contribute to community to feel part of community.
To feel, be. To be, do.
And when it comes to virtue and goodness, our constant inclination should be toward “doing”, not simply “done”.
The shaping of your character is a beautiful work in progress, a lifelong pursuit.
Think:
- Speaking the truth vs. having spoken it once
- Helping others vs. having helped someone once
- Acting honestly vs. having acted honestly once
With this attitude, you’ll soon feel a change in yourself: through knowing goodness and acting in alignment with it, you’ll realize that you’re becoming good.
A way to maintain this focus on becoming is to realize that we’re very often absorbed in the chasing of some goal or another.
Our motivation to keep going is the end state of having achieved the goal and we believe that satisfaction will wash over us when that end state is reached.
What usually happens when we eventually reach that end state is that a certain emptiness is felt.
The satisfaction didn’t last and now we need a new goal to strive for, a new occupation to give our days meaning.
In the state of striving, in the midst of pursuit, we cast our minds too far ahead. “When I get this or achieve that, I’ll be happy then,” we think.
On the other hand, if we don’t achieve the goal we set for ourselves we might wish we hadn’t wasted the time and effort on it.
We postpone happiness or even deny ourselves it through our as-yet-unmet desires.
It’s only when we look back that we realize it was the process that made us happy more so than the outcome.
Seneca used useful examples to summarize this sentiment in his 9th letter to Lucilius:
The philosopher Attalus used to say: “It is more pleasant to make a friend than to have one, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have painted.” When one is busy and absorbed in one’s work, the very absorption affords great delight; but when one has withdrawn one’s hand from the completed masterpiece, the pleasure is not so keen. Now it is the fruit of his art that he enjoys; it was the art itself that he enjoyed while he was painting.
Being engaged in meaningful work is what gives us purpose. Whether we succeed or fail, we can still derive satisfaction from the act of executing it to the best of our ability.
It’s not a tensionless future state we need, wrote Viktor Frankl, but rather the striving and struggling in the present for some goal worthy of us.
Our mental well-being, our sense of meaning, is usually improved as a by-product of our good acts but is more elusive when chased directly.
As Frankl also wrote: “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
It can ensue for us as we make our best attempts at being—and continuing to be—good.
