Stoic Joy - Review 2 of 5

The second lesson that I learned from William Irving's book, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, was to practise negative visualisation.

That's, right, negative visualisation. This is imagining bad things happening. Imagining loss, imagining your life taking a negative turn. You do this regularly as an exercise to help you strengthen the value you see what you already have.

Human beings are conditioned to want more. Like food for example. Our original conditioning to overeat was so as to store food in our bodies for those times that there might be none. For times of drought. But food is readily available, and when it is, the need for storage isn't real, and secondly the pressure to consume it isn't real. Take for example a poor person, who is starving and in need of food. A stale piece of bread would taste like a royal meal. A glass of water would be like fine wine. However, for a person who's constantly surrounded by bread and water, and therefore has no need of them, their tastes in food become much richer. The food is no longer required as sustenance, but takes on a second meaning. For pleasure. And so the palate graduates to fine meats and rare wines. And because the extra food is not required, its storage requires additional weight to the body.

The Stoics urged for the regular practise of negative visualisation. Not just when you felt like it and saw something bad. You made it a daily practise. William Irving says that he practises it on his way to work, while driving. He writes that it's helped him temper his road rage. He says that he tried picking a time at the end of the day, but that didn't work because of fatigue. But he also says that this is something that you can break our into many segments throughout the day.

Of all the advice from the Stoics this is the strongest and most controversial, but the one that defines how you transition from a philosophy of just thinking, it's all in the mind, to a philosophy of doing, of practising. Going on a diet can be a worthwhile exercise, but doesn't make you a Stoic. Some diets are hard, but some people persist on them, for various reasons. The Stoic is the person who truly enjoys the frugality of the meal.

This negative visualisation also finds a home in your personal life, your relationships. Imagining the loss of loved ones will help you take those extra measures today to appreciate them and show them your love. Not to treat them for granted. Imagining the loss of your sight, your arms or legs, will help you appreciate more how grateful you are that you can see, can touch and hold, craft things with your hands, and that you can walk or run. And even if you're missing one of these senses, imagining the loss of any more will give you that heightened sense of appreciation for the ones you have.

The point of negative visualisation is to help you appreciate the existing life and not to complain about what's missing. It's to help you realise that, indeed, life is richer than you think it is.

I personally find negative visualisation very difficult. I admit that I haven't reached a point where I'm even willing to imagine the loss of my loved ones. At least not visualise it. Imagine a life of solitude without them. I can accept the mental notion of loss, but not the reality of it. But for myself, one thing that I can do, that I can practise is the thought that one day, all of this will be gone.

And that's as far as I'm willing to take negative visualisation for now. That one day, my health will be gone and so I should take the time, right now, to enjoy the body that I have and treat it well. That the problem that I'm currently facing will fade in time, and that there's no point worrying about it. Time will take care of it.

The purpose of negative visualisation is to help you strengthen your appreciation of the things you currently have, to douse that desire to always want more and more and more. Because we're not comfortable with what we have, we always think that getting more will make us happier. That promotion will make me feel better, that new dress will make me look better, that new car will allow me to feel more comfortable, that new house will finally allow me to rest and sit back and I will have now arrived. I can then stop.

But it's that false hope, that by getting more and not being happy with what you have that negative visualisation tries to deal with. And for me, taking stock of what I have, and imagining that things could be worse, that that stuff I currently don't like could go and be replaced with stuff that's much worse, does it for me. My apartment is small, but it could be worse. I don't have a million dollars in the bank, but it could be worse. I miss certain riches and comforts in life, but it could be worse. Things could be much, much worse.

But with that I also leave you with the corollary notion to also count your blessings. In thinking of what could be worse, I also take a look around at the things that I own, the things that I have, and concentrate on appreciating them. The oatmeal breakfast is eaten as though it was the last meal on earth. My children are enjoyed to the fullest. My apartment is greeted and taken care of lovingly. Enjoy each breath and each step I take, knowing how precious it is that I can do this, and that at some time in the future, they will be gone.