The importance of habit
We are what we repeatedly think and do. Great insights and brilliant plans are not worth much if they are not repeatedly recalled and carried out. We should approach the project of changing ourselves both from the outside (changing what we do) and the inside (changing how we think and feel) since they ultimately feed into each other in a virtuous circle.
- Memorise a collection of short, pithy maxims for life so that they are procheiron or ‘close at hand’ (this is what the Stoics, Epicureans etc did). Epictetus wrote, ‘it is not easy for a man to come to a judgment unless he should state and hear the same principles every day, and at the same time apply them to all his life.’
- For any practical virtue you want to improve on, make it a daily habit for at least a month (e.g. RAK, gratitude journal). As Aristotle said, ‘we become temperate by performing temperate acts, brave by performing brave acts.’
Transcendence and cosmic insignificance therapy
Seek out opportunities for ‘ekstasis’ (stepping outside of yourself). It is burdensome to remain so wrapped up in ourselves, as Jesse points out in Before Sunrise, ‘I know what you mean about wishing somebody else wasn’t there. It’s just, usually, it’s myself that I wish I could get away from. Seriously, think about this. I have never been anywhere that I haven’t been. I’ve never had a kiss when I wasn’t one of the kissers. You know, I’ve never gone to the movies when I wasn’t there in the audience. I’ve never been out bowling if I wasn’t there making some stupid joke.’ You are not the Sun so suspend the gravitational pull of your ego and direct yourself outwards. When you expand your perspective, you feel lighter, and your problems feel smaller.
- Practise ekstasis by listening to great classical music (Mahler 2, Beethoven 3 or 9), watching awe-inspiring films (Magnolia, Free Solo), going out in nature
- Watch ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ by Carl Sagan, go to observatories
Fighting hedonic adaptation
One of the central facts of life is that when we get what it is we have been seeking for such a long time, we quickly adapt to it. It doesn’t provide us with the pot of gold we were hoping for. As Schopenhauer put it, we are usually either frustrated in not getting the object of our desire or bored when we get it, ‘life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.’
Irvine notes in his ‘A Guide to the Good Life’ that ‘one key to happiness is to forestall the adaptation process.’ We should do this by practicing negative visualisation. Vividly imagine the things that you currently take for granted being taken away from you, then return to the present moment and experience profound gratitude for having them.
- Negative visualisation or ‘3 things’ gratefulness practice
Dichotomy of control
‘Some things are up to us, other things are not up to us.’ (Epictetus) To combat overwhelm, focus on what you can control and practice non-attachment with everything else. This way your energy will be concentrated entirely on what is in your power, as Marcus Aurelius observed ‘nothing is worth doing pointlessly.’ Consider the archer who aims at the target. They only have control over the speed and direction of the arrow, but they don’t command the winds. They might fire the arrow perfectly and still miss the target. Cicero said that this shows us what we ought to desire: ‘the actual hitting of the mark is to be chosen but not desired.’
- Set internal goals, ones over which we have total control. Irvine: ‘his goal in playing tennis will not be to win a match (something external, over which he has only partial control) but to play to the best of his ability in the match (something internal, over which he has complete control). By choosing this goal, he will spare himself frustration or disappointment should he lose the match: Since it was not his goal to win the match, he will not have failed to attain his goal as long as he played his best. His tranquillity will not be disrupted.’
The weakness of strength
If you spend enough time with anyone, eventually they are going to do something that annoys, frustrates, or upsets you. You were drawn to this person because of their positive qualities, so you might wish at times that you could just remove their annoying traits and keep the good ones.
However, this is not how personalities work. Every strength that you or someone else has, is a weakness too. What we’re seeing are not their faults, pure and simple, but rather the shadow side of things that are genuinely good about them. We’re picking up on weaknesses that derive from strengths.
| Strength | Associated weakness |
| Careful | Not brave |
| Quick learner | Impatient |
| Hardworking | Anxious/stressed |
| Sincere | Not that funny |
| Energetic | Exhausting |
Productivity advice
Use Oliver Burkeman’s principles in ‘Forty Thousand Weeks’:
- Pay yourself first– schedule time every day to the projects that move you forward, and don’t attempt to get everything else done first
- Limit your work in progress. Only work on a set number of projects (say 3) at any given time. Keep two ‘to-do’ lists: open and closed.
- Resist the allure of middling priorities. ‘In a world of too many big rocks, it’s the moderately appealing ones- the fairly interesting job opportunity, the semi-enjoyable friendship- on which a finite life can come to grief.’
- Focus on what you’ve already completed, not just what is left to complete. Instead of thinking of paying off a productivity debt, have a done list which fills up with accomplishment throughout the day.
- James Hollis asks of every significant decision in life: Does this choice diminish me or enlarge me? ‘You usually know, intuitively, whether remaining in a relationship or job would present the kind of challenges that will help you grow as a person (enlargement) or the kind that will cause your soul to shrivel with every passing week (diminishment). Choose uncomfortable enlargement over comfortable diminishment whenever you can.’
Also remember Cal Newport’s advice in ‘So Good they can’t ignore you’: focus on building rare and valuable skills and aim to be a true craftsman and performer in your field.
Pay attention to what has your attention
This principle of David Allen’s is critical to finding flow. If already something has your attention, you are motivated to explore it further and you need to clear your mind of it to build momentum, ‘If you don’t pay attention to what has your attention it will take more of your attention than it deserves.’
Sometimes you need to get out of the way- go with the flow and follow where your thoughts lead.
- Practice brain dumping– sit still with paper in hand and note down what your mind is already preoccupied with. This is a silent meditation on the subconscious, for the purpose of better aligning your energy.
Positive psychology
Whenever your mood is flagging and you are feeling down, don’t lose sight of the basics:
- Exercise
- Good sleep
- Social connection
- Learning
- Deep work
- Aesthetic pleasure
- Meaningful goals
This positive psychology checklist is a useful shorthand for well-being. Consult it to see if there are any easy fixes to improve how you feel.
Keep the end in mind
‘The most basic form of stupidity is forgetting what we are trying to accomplish’ (Nietzsche).
All intrinsic goods, at least as they relate to the individual, are states of consciousness. You might say that worldly fame is your goal. Yet what you likely seek is the state of feeling validated or adored which you believe will come from the praise of strangers. Always look out for what the ultimate end is that you seek. If you are unsure, you can keep asking ‘why?’ until you reach the desired state of consciousness.
What are instrumental goods? An instrumental good: if you had that thing and it didn’t produce the further good (the intrinsic one) it would not be valuable. For example, if you want fame for the recognition and praise of strangers, then fame without these (if you are subject to abuse and scorn) is not valuable. Similarly, if you want money to feel secure or gain greater pleasure, then money without that feeling of security or without greater pleasure is not valuable. Intrinsic goods are self-sufficient. Instrumental goods are contingent on other things. If you got X, but it didn’t bring you Y, would you want it?
- Beware that what you seek is what you think you seek. Ask: what is it that you really want? Is it instrumentally valuable, in which case what do you think you will get from it? Or is it intrinsically valuable?
Remember your ABCs
CBT offers a useful shorthand for the process that leads us to get upset. First, we have an activating event (a situation we encounter). Then we have a belief about that event. Finally, we have a consequence– the results of the belief about the situation. This echoes Epictetus’ reflection, ‘it isn’t things themselves that disturb people, but the judgments that they form about them.’ It is the belief that leads to the negative consequence, rather than the event itself.
In my case, if I’m on a train there might be an activating event of people playing music loudly. I might then have a belief- they don’t respect me or the other passengers. Then this leads to a consequence- feeling insulted and stewing on that feeling.
My main triggers are feeling out of control, feeling disrespected, and perceived unfairness/one-sidedness. Be on the lookout to minimise situations which activate these beliefs and question the beliefs that result from them. Is there any evidence for my belief? Is it likely exaggerated? Is there an alternative explanation for this event?
Happy pessimism
Happiness = Reality/Expectations. To become happier, you either need to improve your reality or lower your expectations. So oddly if we are more pessimistic, we’ll be happier!
‘Seneca thought that we get angry for a very simple reason: optimism. He asked why people don’t get angry when it rains. The reason why is because we expect it to rain…Think about when we lose our keys, or when we get stuck in traffic. Essentially this is because we believe implicitly in which keys never go astray and the roads are always mysteriously empty.’ (De Botton) Be pessimistic!
Another reason we become angered is because we are under the illusion that we are in control. Seneca thought that we should think of our lives as being subject to the whims of the goddess of fortune. This is echoed by the saying ‘I will see you at 2 o’clock Inshallah.’ (If God wills it) Ordinarily we speak and think as though we are the masters of our destiny, but this places us under an undue burden and makes every inconvenience an affront to our standing as directors of universe. Fatalism, on the other hand, leads to gratefulness. Another day in which God allowed the trains to run on time and me to live!
The illusion of control and the optimistic spirit are both especially prominent in modern Western culture. We now have very high expectations of work and love which make us especially frustrated when we fall short of them. Work- we will find a job that feels like play, and which will sustain us with challenge, creativity, and flow. Love- we will find someone who will fulfil our every need and we will never need to feel lonely again.
The Golden Mean
Aristotle wrote, ‘Fear, confidence, appetite, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain can be experienced too much or too little, and in both ways not well. But to have them at the right time, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the mean and best: and this is the business of virtue. Similarly, there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean in actions.’
When considering how best to live, we ought to heed Aristotle’s advice and consider what the excess, the deficiency, and the mean are in respect of our virtues. We ought to think about what extreme we are more naturally inclined to, and then take steps to go in the opposite direction (Baggini).
Goal setting advice
Focus on values: ‘Goals are like the sights you want to see your journey, which you can tick off your list as you go along. Values on the other hand are like a compass showing the direction in which you want to travel, and in which you can continue to move as long as you wish. So instead of focusing on a concrete goal like ‘becoming a doctor’, say, you could start with choosing a value to live by, such as ‘helping people.’ This has the advantage of helping us to stay close to what really matters, avoiding getting fixated on a particular goal, and creating flexibility since there can be multiple ways of fulfilling the broader value.’ (Macaro)
My values: living an examined life, helping people to better understand each other’s perspectives, expressing ideas clearly and beautifully, helping people to think more deeply and connectedly.
Focus on being and doing: ‘The best goals are ones that focus on doing and being, not on having done. Whenever a goal is to have done something, whether it’s to have won a Grand Slam or eaten more baked beans in one minute than any other human in recorded history, then the problem is that achieving the goal leaves you with nothing left to do, unless you adopt another goal, and keep the cycle going until you tire of life or it tires of you. If however, your goal is to be a good cook, for example, to do good cooking, then achieving that goal means you have succeeded in living a form of life that has more meaning and satisfaction to you, a life that is filled with more of what you value.’ (Baggini)
Focus on what you can control (process vs outcomes). Recall the Stoic advice about what is and is not in our control and concentrate your mental energy on doing the best you can. Refrain from attaching too much emphasis on results.
Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
‘It turns out that we can’t practice compassion with other people if we are not kind to ourselves.’ (Brene Brown) Remember that self-compassion is not self-indulgent since it ultimately benefits others as well.
Listen to your inner monologue. Would you say to a close friend what you are saying to yourself? We are often our worst critic.
Kristin Neff identifies three ingredients of self-compassion: common humanity over isolation, self-kindness over self-judgement, and mindfulness over over-identification with our feelings.
Beware of bad faith
We often think of the world and of ourselves as given things with fixed essences. However, this is an abnegation of responsibility. Sartre said that to think ‘I am just such a such a person’ or ‘this is just how things have to be’ is bad faith, we make them out to be necessary so can avoid confronting the daunting responsibility of changing them. Alain De Botton summarises, ‘what existentialists say is that human beings are born free but manage to enslave themselves…we say x or y is necessary when in fact it isn’t.’ Tim Ferriss agrees, ‘The common-sense rules of the ‘real world’ are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.’ One of the greatest benefits of philosophy, if not the chief benefit, is that it gives us the resources to question that the way things are is how things should be. Philosophers are enchanted with possibility, with dissolving the fixity of the real.
We can apply Aristotle’s golden mean to this insight. While some people are too rebellious (they respect no authority at all), some are overly compliant (they are super people-pleasers) and we should all find a sensible middle ground between too much obedience and too much rebellion.
Steve Jobs makes this point in a short Youtube clip, ‘Everything that we call life was made up by people who are no smarter than you, and you can change it…you can poke life and something will pop out the other side…shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just going to live in it versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark on it.’ The world is pliable. Studying history also helps us to counter this fixed mindset, since we see that what appears necessary now is the result of a series of contingent happenings in the past. Things could well have gone differently and could well do so in future.
Baggini has a similar warning for those who have too rigid a view of their own identity, ‘Perhaps we are more true to ourselves when we accept our contradictions, fluctuations, and evolution over time. The person who remains the same from one decade to the next is thus not being true to herself, but true to a false idea of self.’
Living la vita contemplativa
‘Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them ‘(i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.’ (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book X)
A life of contemplation has many advantages:
- Contemplation is pleasurable and what is pleasurable is good for its own sake. It would not make sense to ask, ‘why do you do something that feels good?’
- Contemplation is cheap (you can make do with your own thoughts, at times relying on books and friends to stimulate further reflection)
- Contemplation is an activity for which we are self-sufficient; it doesn’t necessarily require other people
- Contemplation can be continuous (you can think in the shower, in the dark, out in nature, while driving and so on)
- Contemplation is in accordance with our highest nature (humans as rational animals). It is an expression of what is most distinctive about us among the creatures of the Earth.
The pleasures of philosophical contemplation:
- Understanding– grasping something intellectually helps us feel connected and at home in the world. Deep understanding brings order and harmony to the mind.
- Independence– contemplation gives us the opportunity to develop our own distinctive outlook on life. Instead of thinking with the results of others’ thinking, we think for ourselves.
- Wonder– Plato said that ‘all philosophy begins in wonder’. When doing philosophy we wonder at the mysteries of the universe, from how everything came to be, to the nature of mind, free will, time, morality, and beauty.
- Transcendence– philosophical contemplation allows us to step outside the narrow confines of ourselves, to experience ‘ekstasis’. Through thinking we can transcend our finite selves and cast our eyes on something greater.
- Play– Since philosophy has few clear rules and little sense of institutional boundaries, there is great potential to explore whatever is of interest to us. We can follow our thoughts wherever they take us. As Michael Sandel put it, ‘the aim of philosophy is to awaken the restlessness of reason, and to see where it might lead.’
- Aporia– Philosophy often produces a feeling of dizzying confusion; a sense that things are not as they seem, and that we are lost (a- without, poria- a path). While feeling lost can be destabilising, we can also feel excited at the new possibilities that open to us when we stray from the path.
- Destruction– Philosophy offers us the opportunity to challenge any assumption and to tear entire belief systems down if reason permits.
Stop overthinking and overplanning
‘Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.’ (Parkinson’s Law)
To avoid this law taking effect, try to be mindful of it, limit the number of options/ automate the process of doing a task, and set artificial deadlines for these tasks to leave more time for more important work. You can also consider, what’s the worst-case scenario here? This could put into proper perspective the consequences for a less-than-perfect decision.
Eckhart Tolle notes that overthinking is an addiction, and after a point (which we can all intuitively recognize) it becomes a tool of avoidance. Robert Herjavec: ‘too much thinking leads to paralysis by analysis. It’s important to think things through, but many use thinking as a means of avoiding action.’
Memento mori
The received wisdom suggests that thinking about death is helpful to clarify what really matters. Steve Jobs echoes this in his famous quote:
‘Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.’
Death alters our assessment of what is meaningful is by highlighting the impermanence of everything we do. Consider someone who spends the best part of a day building a beautiful, intricate sandcastle by the ocean. After several hours have passed the tide comes out and the sandcastle is destroyed. Many of us feel saddened by this; the fact of its destruction. Does this make its creation futile? This is what we must all consider in the face of death. Our projects and goals may feel important and necessary in the moment, but we gain more clarity when we fix our eyes on the horizon.
Death draws our attention to the possibility of miswanting: when our desires are misaligned from our deepest needs. When death appears we may discover that what we thought we wanted we didn’t really want, and similarly we might want other things we didn’t think we should want or we didn’t want to want. Perhaps we might look back wistfully on our deathbeds and wonder why we didn’t indulge more of our time in a hobby that was a bit eccentric, or why we didn’t live more of a carefree life with fewer duties and obligations.
The only thing that cannot be taken away from us is time. Death reminds us of the primacy of time as the source of ultimate value. The Egyptian pharaohs hoarded their wealth in their tombs to bring it with them to the afterlife. Absent that vision of a post-death continuation, we cannot take anything with us. Nothing will remain physically, so we must remain focused on our subjective experience of being a person-in-the-world. This has an impact on how we counterbalance time with other things that we value, like money and visible signs of achievement/wealth/status.
Death is a great leveller. It takes down kings and paupers alike. For those of us affected by a deep drive to be set apart from others, to rise above the fray and achieve some special renown, the acknowledgement that you are equal in the eyes of the reaper brings the impossibility of transcendence into close relief. We are all in the same boat, no one is set apart.
Death gives lives narrative coherence. If we all lived forever, there would be no beginning, middle and end to our existence. We would always be in the second act. Many people define their purpose in life in terms of some narrative arc, which necessitates that we have a finite amount of time to achieve it in. Obituaries often follow a structure of upbringing- breakthrough- development- later life- death. Without the inevitability of death, these various stages would lose their meaning.
Death destroys the illusion of security. There is no Archimedean point, no still and unchanging point to hang on to. Our world and ourselves can vanish in an instant. ‘There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity… If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life. Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure. To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I,” but it is just the feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid. In other words, the more security I can get, the more I shall want. To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath.’ (Alan Watts) Since there is no possibility of security, we ought to try to take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with greater equanimity and poise. Death reminds us: we are not in control.
Pay attention to metaphors
We think through words, images, models, and stories. All of these are inescapably metaphorical- they take unalike things and make connections between them. Lakoff writes, ‘The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another.’ Because of this, we do not see the world as it is, we see it through the (often unconscious) framing of our metaphorical thinking.
‘What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.’ (Nietzsche)
We should consider the metaphors we subconsciously subscribe to in our politics, religion, and overall worldview. Take some metaphors for life:
Life is a…
- Gift?
- Competition?
- Performance?
- Battle?
- Garden?
- A mission?
- An adventure?
- A classroom?
- A prison?
- A race?
The metaphors we live by have a big impact on what we pay attention to and how we think and feel.
Nonviolent communication
An excellent guide to constructive communication which focuses on addressing emotional needs without blame and judgment.
Triangular desire and mimesis
What we want is affected by what other people want. According to Rene Girard, beyond the essential needs (food, shelter, sex, safety etc) everything we want is a product of social influence, ‘Man is the creature who does not know what to desire and he turns to others to make up his mind.’ Desire is triangular; it is mediated by other people. Girard calls this process mimesis or mimetic desire.
- Identify the people influencing what you want: when you think about the life you want to lead, who do you feel most embodies it?
- Be aware of systems of desire: is there a standard that everyone seems to be following?
- Take stock of your desires: how mimetic are they? Burgis distinguishes between more authentic ‘thick’ desires and ‘thin’ mimetic ones.
To vividly take stock of your desires, consider what it would be like to desire it in the absence of others. Would you still want it?
“Suppose you woke up one morning to discover that you were the last person on earth: during the night, aliens had spirited away everyone but you. Suppose that despite the absence of other people, the world’s buildings, houses, stores, and roads remained as they had been the night before. Cars were where their now-vanished owners had parked them, and gas for these cars was plentiful at now-unattended gas stations. The electricity still worked. It would be a world like this world, except that everyone but you was gone. You would, of course, be very lonely, but let us ignore the emotional aspects of being the last person, and instead focus our attention on the material aspects. In the situation described, you could satisfy many material desires that you can’t satisfy in our actual world. You could have the car of your dreams. You could even have a showroom full of expensive cars. You could have the house of your dreams—or live in a palace. You could wear very expensive clothes. You could acquire not just a big diamond ring but the Hope Diamond itself. The interesting question is this: without people around, would you still want these things? Would the material desires you harboured when the world was full of people still be present in you if other people vanished? Probably not. Without anyone else to impress, why own an expensive car, a palace, fancy clothes, or jewelry?” (Irvine, On Desire)
