A Stoic Checklist...

I’m about to finish an excellent book on Stoicism - ‘A Guide to The Good Life’ by William Irvine - and towards the end he attempts to summarise the key habits we need to practice in order to live a (stoically) good life :-

1. Be self-aware in how we respond to the day’s events.
2. Use reason to overcome our more negative emotions.
3. Enjoy our affluence and good fortune, but don’t cling to it.
4. Form and maintain relationships with those who have positive values.
5. Ignore insults, and don’t let others disturb our tranquility.
6. Conquer our insatiability through negative visualisation.
7. Stop worrying about things over which we have no control
8. Internalise goals when we have only limited control over events.
9. Learn from the past and the present, but never be upset by them.

I’m pretty sure that mastering these habits would take me a lifetime - but I suppose, to the ancient Stoics, that was very much the whole point….