The Stoic Challenge by William B. Irvine

Irvine’s updated “Stoic test strategy” teaches us how to transform life’s stumbling blocks into opportunities for becoming calmer, tougher, and more resilient.

The Stoics discovered that thinking of challenges as tests of character can dramatically alter our emotional response to them. The result is a surprisingly simple strategy for dealing with life’s unpleasant and unexpected challenges-from minor setbacks like being caught in a traffic jam or having a flight cancelled to major setbacks like those experienced by physicist Stephen Hawking, who slowly lost the ability to move, and writer Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered from locked-in syndrome. This book uniquely combines ancient Stoic insights with techniques discovered by contemporary psychological research, such as anchoring and framing. ) The Stoic Challenge, then, is the ultimate guide to improving your quality of life through tactics developed by ancient Stoics, from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to Epictetus. Irvine teaches us to turn any challenge on its head. Plumbing the wisdom of one of the most popular and successful schools of thought from ancient Rome, philosopher William B. Stoicism offers us an alternative approach. We often think that these responses are hardwired, but fortunately this is not the case. Some people bounce back in response to setbacks others break. ( shrink)Ī practical, refreshingly optimistic guide that uses centuries-old wisdom to help us better cope with the stresses of modern living. The pessimistic conclusion, however, is that most people are probably unwilling to undergo the self-analysis and self-transformation that this philosophical approach requires. I will show how, by following the advice of the ancient Stoics and training ourselves to care less what others think of us, we can help overcome our desire for social status, resulting in a reduction in our desire for material things and a significant reduction in our personal energy bill. ) fourth, however, best characterized as philosophical. Typically these fall into three categories: educational, political, and technological.

Nonetheless, steps taken to deal with energy gluttony parallel those taken with food gluttony. Their energy gluttony is a side effect of insatiable desire for material goods, which themselves are often associated with social status. One difference is that energy gluttons are typically oblivious to how much energy they consume and the source of that energy. Abstract As there are food gluttons, so there are energy gluttons.

The Stoic Challenge by William B. Irvine