Stoics don’t seek out external things in order to be happy because happiness comes from within. (Happiness also comes from how we decide to perceive the world, based on our inner judgments.) But a Stoic can find a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude in life’s simplest gifts: a sunset, holding the hand of a loved one, or even the most basic meal. While our real goods lie within, we can still feel a deep sense of gratitude for every gift the universe offers to us. At the same time, we can come to see, through the eyes of appreciation, that the finest gifts from the universe are often free, or freely given. Because of that, we can take pleasure in simple things, like a cup of tea on a sunny morning. We can also experience profound happiness and satisfaction without seeking out an endless flow of expensive luxuries. As Seneca pointed out, someone who has enough is already rich. When we view the world with a sense of appreciation, even the most simple experiences have value.
For Seneca, someone who has found happiness or well-being will be able to look back on life with gratitude for everything the universe has given, as he or she is facing death. Similarly, Epictetus repeatedly described life, and the world, as resembling a festival. In his view, when we reach the end of life, we should be grateful for the time we were alive, thankful for the chance we had to participate in the festival. He also said a philosopher should be full of gratitude for the opportunity he had to behold the wonders of the universe and investigate nature’s underlying order. He told his students, “May I be thinking, writing, and reading such thoughts when death overtakes me!”36
Marcus Aurelius left us with an even more graphic image of the kind of gratitude a Stoic might feel at the end of life. As he reminded himself in his Meditations,
Pass through this short moment of time living in accord with nature, and make your end cheerful, just as a ripe olive might fall, blessing the earth that bore it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.37
For Marcus, the fact that we will one day die is part of nature’s providential order, which we should accept without complaint but with gratitude. The Stoics realized that our lives are tiny, and in some ways insignificant, in relation to the immensity of the entire cosmos. But the very fact that we have been given a chance to participate in such a remarkable universe, and in human society, should be seen as both a gift and an honor.
In the end, we experience gratitude for something good or beautiful we receive—either from a person or from nature, which continually delivers such gifts. Like the light given off by the sun, this generosity is unearned by us, but it’s freely given to everyone. The sun, while giving everyone the gift of life, greens the meadows of the earth. But it demands nothing in return. Perhaps in this way, as the Stoics suggested, nature, life, and every gift we receive, all reflect a radiance of generosity, given freely by the universe itself.
CHAPTER 14
Freedom, Tranquility, and Lasting Joy
Freedom is the prize we are seeking. That means not being a slave to anything—to no compulsion and no chance events. It means reducing Fortune’s power to an equal playing field.
—Seneca, Letters 51.9
BECOMING FREE
Stoicism’s ultimate and most radical promise is that true happiness is fully within our reach at this very instant. For the Stoics, “happiness is ‘up to us’ and not due to luck, because the person who develops a sound character will possess deep inner satisfaction and the best, most enduring kind of happiness.”1
Most important, the Stoics teach us exactly how to obtain this kind of lasting happiness. While it might take some effort, the Stoics claimed that the end result of “a life truly worth living” is within our grasp. In this final chapter, we’ll explore exactly how this lasting happiness comes about, according to Seneca.
For the Roman Stoics, the practical goal of philosophy was to develop a sound or excellent inner character. But one outcome of having a good character is to experience tranquility and peace of mind, and to possess a life that is truly worth living. So having a good character and happiness (eudaimonia) go together.2
For Seneca—and for Epictetus, the Stoic teacher who followed him—the key to developing a good character and happiness is found in the idea of freedom and the process of becoming free. As Seneca notes, “Freedom is the prize we are seeking,” and as he writes elsewhere, the promise of Stoic philosophy is “lasting freedom.”3 In fact, for Seneca, “freedom,” “having a good character,” and “happiness” were so closely related as to overlap.
What freedom means for Seneca is not being enslaved by false judgments, extreme negative emotions, anger, compulsions, unhappiness, anxiety about the future, a desire for external objects, feelings of emotional injury, and the opinions or actions of others. These are ideas we’ve already explored in this book. But in another sense, freedom also means belonging to yourself, living a life that is already complete, and being self-sufficient.
Being a former slave, Epictetus was no less interested in freedom than Seneca. Freedom, not surprisingly, was one of the major themes in his teachings. As Epictetus told his students, “Freedom is the greatest good, and no one who is really free can be unhappy. So if we see someone who is unhappy or miserable, we can know, with confidence, that person is not free.”4
In a Stoic sense, to be free is to remain undisturbed by anything that is “not up to us,” anything that belongs to the realm of chance or Fortune. Freedom also means not being subject to false opinions that give rise to worry, anxiety, anger, and other forms of emotional suffering.
In one definition Seneca offers of freedom, he states, “It means not fearing humans or gods, not craving things that are low or excessive, and having complete power over yourself. Just being your own person is a priceless good.”5 When Seneca mentions “having complete power over yourself,” he’s referring, at least in part, to the freedom of being able to make sound judgments, the opposite of being enslaved by false beliefs and negative social conditioning.
For a Stoic, ultimate freedom is achieved by the ability to make sound judgments. Only then will we truly “belong to ourselves.” Only then will we possess real freedom and self-sufficiency. Only then will we be able to look down upon Fortune and not allow our mental happiness to depend on chance events beyond our control.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND THE HAPPY LIFE: RISING ABOVE FORTUNE AND CHANCE
We must make our escape to freedom. But this can only happen through disregard of Fortune.
—Seneca, On the Happy Life 4.4–5
The way someone becomes free, or becomes self-sufficient, is by rising above Fortune. The more we grant importance to external things outside our control, the less free we will become. Blind greed, Seneca notes, impels us to seek out things that will never satisfy us. If those kinds of external things could satisfy us, they would have done so already. But as he points out, we don’t often consider “how pleasant it is to ask for nothing, how wonderful it is to be satisfied without depending on Fortune.”6 He writes, “I can show you many things that, once acquired, stole our freedom away. We would still belong to ourselves if those things did not belong to us.”7
The alternative to seeking happiness in external things is to realize that our real goods, our true sources of happiness, are discovered within. People chase after endless pleasures in the outer world, in things that glitter and shine. But those shiny objects are never satisfying over the long term. By contrast, developing a sound character brings lasting happiness while still allowing us to appreciate the value of external things for what they are. This allows a Stoic, or anyone else for that matter, to experience real fulfillment.