Consider the alternatives: that we harbour resentment, bury aggression, or anxiously try to change events or take revenge. All these reactions will make matters worse. Plus, so much of our anxiety can come from not knowing what we should do. The simplicity of it’s fine, even if it’s a journey to get there, undoes all of that vexed toing and froing.

The other reason is, I think, more interesting, and is of use to us as we consider the question of happiness in our ordinary, mortal lives. We would not just look back and feel the dead weight of over-familiarity. Something in us, conscious or otherwise, would look forward and find that without the framework provided by precious finite time, all en

Seneca describes the practice, attributing it to Sextius, a Pythagorean philosopher who we imagine taught it to his students: When the day was over and he had withdrawn to his room for his nightly rest, he questioned his soul: ‘What evils have you cured yourself of today? What vices have you fought? In what sense are you better?’ Is there anything

We prefer the illusion of black-and-white thinking to the real-life complexities of the grey in-betweens. We guzzle down sugary drinks and food rather than develop a sensitive and subtle palate; we play endless games and seek increasingly convincing virtual realities in favour of seeking actual growth. We look to be spiritually coddled, to avoid wh

Rojek points out that the manufacturing of celebrity is conducive to our economic process. The key emotion that attaches us to celebrities is desire: we commonly want to be like them, to sleep with them, to possess them in some way. Because they are usually rich, sexy and glamorous (so few of us tick all three boxes and still have time for our exte

Note that Marcus concludes by painting a very compassionate picture. We are all here to work together, he says, like parts of a body. We are all part of a whole. We need each other to function, and petty conflicts do not serve the greater good. His aim, then, is not to avoid those he doesn’t like but to find a way around the clashing of personaliti

The fortitude that comes with only bothering ourselves with those things within our control allows us to then reach out more widely into the world and experience it in a generous and selfless way. Despite this talk of paying attention only to what lies within our power, when we combine that thought with an attitude of openness, it will allow us to

Socratic questioning was redundant; we now need only believe in God, accept what we were told and live accordingly. Previously, reason had been seen as the greatest quality of the human being, and the key to our telos, our goal as a race. It had been celebrated as the feature that makes us unique on this Earth. Now, rational enquiry would become da

a considered life is one in which we deeply engage with our own story. That means we need to identify what our story is and then know how to move it forward. If we don’t – if we swing between pain and boredom, or merely defy those who would dare to tell us what to do – we shut off important channels of development (and, therefore, life).