Meditate on others’ virtues
That’s amazing, thinks Yael as she watches her friend Abigail hand the homeless man a $100 bill. Yael was more concerned with avoiding the stench coming from the man, but not Abigail—she can’t help but give to those in need. Abigail is the kindest person Yael knows. I want to be more like that, Yael thinks to herself, and smiles.
"When you want to cheer your spirits, consider the excellences of those about you—one so effective, another so unassuming, another so open-handed, and so on and so on. Nothing is more cheering than exemplifications of virtue in the characters of those about us, suggesting themselves as copiously as possible. We should keep them always ready to hand.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.48
Your work for the past several weeks has been focused on one main aspect of Stoic practice: reducing the desire for externals. We’ve addressed what Stoics think you shouldn’t desire, but what do they say you should? We’ll begin answering this question this week, but it will also be the focus of the Discipline of Action, which we’ll explore next.
The Stoics encourage us to seek virtuous friends. Yael is inspired by Abigail’s actions, which she believes reflect her friend’s virtuous character. This is the sort of friend that the ancient Greco-Romans, from Aristotle to the Stoics to Cicero, would have approved of. Aristotle even called it a friendship of virtue, and considered it the highest kind of friendship. The Stoics thought of it as the only one deserving that name. To appreciate the contrast, think of how we accumulate more and more “friends” on social media, made up mostly of people we haven’t even met.
Becoming a good person is not just a matter of avoiding desire of the wrong things; it is also a matter of desiring the right ones. Training ourselves not to covet another person’s sexual partner, for example, is most certainly a good thing. But it is even better to train ourselves to be just, kind, temperate, and courageous. It’s admittedly hard to improve on our own; we need help, and we need yardsticks against which to measure our own progress. That is why positive friendships are so crucial in Stoicism: A friend like Abigail is, in a strong sense, a guiding light for the aspirations of Yael. If you think this is putting too much burden on your friends, recall that sages are very rare, and that people who inspire us don’t have to be perfect. Surely Abigail has her own limitations and faults, and perhaps it is Yael who can help her with those in turn. They pull each other up, encouraging one another to become better and better.
Notice that Marcus mentions the character of “those about us,” which is a broader category than just friends. While friendship is the obvious place to look, we can also learn how to be virtuous from colleagues, relatives, and even perfect strangers. Had Yael witnessed the same scene where the homeless man was instead helped by a stranger, she would likely have learned the same lesson in practical virtue. And one more thing: Marcus says that “nothing is more cheering” than witnessing people engage in virtuous acts. This is an interesting point, because joy at the sight of virtue is one of the positive emotions that the Stoics thought we should nurture, and that would be present in a sage. So we know that Stoicism is not about suppressing emotions, only about escaping from the destructive ones.