WEEK 17
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.
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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
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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.
This week’s exercise is simple: Take a few minutes each day to write about the admirable character traits of your friends and acquaintances. Choose a time of day when you’d like to do this exercise, and write it in the space.
Then, every day, use the space on the next two pages to write a few sentences concerning the person whom you admire, as well as to rate your mood before and after the exercise. If you find you have a lot to write, you may want to use a separate sheet of paper, or write out what you admire about the person on your computer or tablet instead of just writing a paragraph. You can still use the space to plan out what you’d like to write about and rate your cheerfulness.
Answer the following questions each day. Be sure to rate your mood at the beginning and end of each writing session.
- Rate your level of cheerfulness from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest.
- Whom will you be writing about?
- What character trait of this person do you admire?
- What do you find admirable about this person and why?
- Rate your cheerfulness again on a scale of 1 to 10.
Be sure to keep these points in mind when writing:
- The focus should be on what character traits you admire about the person, not material or superficial aspects that are not in that person’s complete control.
- The person does not have to be a saint. Just focus on one thing you admire about that person, even if they have flaws. If flaws do come to mind while writing, try to stay focused on what you admire, and don’t write about what’s not admirable.
- These can be friends, family, or acquaintances. You don’t have to know the people well in order to find something admirable about them.
One of the main reasons for doing this exercise that Marcus suggests is that it’s a wholesome way to lift our spirits. We can take an educated guess as to why he thinks this is the case. First, it focuses on the positive. Marcus implies throughout his Meditations that he may have been surrounded by people who were difficult to work with or be around. Focusing on the positive aspects of both friends and difficult people may have lifted his mood. Second, recollecting how others have positively influenced him may have instilled a sense of cheerful gratitude. Book I of the Meditations is almost exclusively devoted to this exercise. Marcus reminds himself of the virtues he learned from others throughout his life, which also serves as a reminder to work on exemplifying those character traits as much as possible. Finally, focusing on what’s in a person’s control (i.e., their character) may have helped Marcus practice the dichotomy of control, taking his mind off of dispreferred indifferents whose outcome he could not completely control. But this is mostly speculation!
Your goal this week is to find out if and how this exercise may help you.
Did you find that Marcus’s experience was true for you? Did focusing on the virtues of others around you raise your spirits? Were there other positive, unexpected side effects? Take a few minutes to write about your experience.
Finally, bookmark this page if you think you think this exercise would be useful in your future Stoic practice.
That’s it for the Discipline of Desire! You’ve spent the past seventeen weeks focusing on reducing your desires and aversions to external things. Now it’s time to retake the brief quiz that started off this section to see how much progress you’ve made in the discipline. Take the quiz below now.
Now that you’ve spent seventeen weeks on the Discipline of Desire, it’s time to retake the quiz that started this section. Rate how much the following statements describe you as you currently are on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning it doesn’t describe you at all and 10 meaning it describes you perfectly.
I get really upset when I don’t get what I want or things don’t go my way.
I put a lot of effort into avoiding things I don’t like or that I’m afraid of.
I spend a lot of time pursuing comfort and pleasure.
Once you’ve completed this quiz, flip back to page 10 to see your progress. Stoic practice takes a lifetime of work, so while hopefully you will see some improvement, don’t fret if you didn’t. By completing the exercises, you have taken a big step in testing out which exercises in the Discipline of Desire may work for you in your future practice. You’ll be able to create a personalized Stoic curriculum at the end of this book, using only those exercises that worked best for you.