A Guide To The Good Life : The Ancient Art Of Stoic Joy: The Ancient Art Of Stoic Joy - Plot & Excerpts
The obvious reason for doing this is to prevent those things from happening. Someone might, for example, spend time thinking about ways people could break into his home so he can prevent them from doing so. Or he might spend time thinking about the diseases that might afflict him so he can take preventive measures. But no matter how hard we try to prevent bad things from happening to us, some will happen anyway. Seneca therefore points to a second reason for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us. If we think about these things, we will lessen their impact on us when, despite our efforts at prevention, they happen: “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.”1 Misfortune weighs most heavily, he says, on those who “expect nothing but good fortune.”2 Epictetus echoes this advice: We should keep in mind that “all things everywhere are perishable.” If we fail to recognize this and instead go around assuming that we will always be able to enjoy the things we value, we will likely find ourselves subject to considerable distress when the things we value are taken from us.3 Besides these reasons for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us, there is a third and arguably much more important reason.
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