Practice like a Stoic: 14, Evaluate your goals

Always keep an eye on your integrity

The Choice of Hercules (between vice, right, and virtue, left), by Annibale Carracci, 1596. Image from Wikimedia, CC.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 94-97 of the paperback edition.]

“Take care that we do not labor for what is vain, or labor in vain; that is to say, neither to desire what we are not able to obtain, nor yet, having obtained our desire too late, and after much toil, to discover the folly of our wishes. In other words, that our labor may not be without result, and that the result may not be unworthy of our labor, for as a rule sadness arises from one of these two things, either from want of success or from being ashamed of having succeeded.” (Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 12)

The Stoics may come across to some as the killjoys of ancient philosophers. Far better to be an Epicurean and go for sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, right? Except that the Epicureans never actually pursued hedonism of that sort, quite apart from the fact that rock ’n’ roll had yet to be invented when they roamed the agora. Although Stoicism is often perceived as a demanding moral philosophy, you’ll be hard pressed to find a philosophy (or religion) that isn’t ethically demanding. That’s a big part of their job, and if you think it is more difficult to be a Stoic than a Christian, or a Buddhist, you have not entirely understood what the latter two are all about.

For instance, we should not betray someone’s trust regardless of whether we are trying to pursue Stoic virtue, achieve Epicurean ataraxia (tranquility of mind), or be a good Christian. Why not? Because being disloyal is a vice, often incurred in the pursuit of something not worthy, like lust, or financial gain. That is what Seneca means when he says that we should not labor for what is vain. Lust and financial gain are vain pursuits because they do not improve you as a person even under the best of circumstances. Suppose we do succeed in satisfying our lust or in acquiring more wealth. We will feel good in the moment, and perhaps somewhat smug about our accomplishment for a little bit afterward. But if we are decent persons at all, eventually our conscience will begin to speak up, demanding to know why we acted in an unprincipled manner for material advantage. Even if our conscience should stay silent, we may face consequences if we are found out: everything we have built up to that moment may crumble or be radically altered, and not for the better. As Seneca puts it, we will discover the folly of our wishes, and be ashamed of having succeeded.

But there is a second side to this coin: Seneca says we should not labor to achieve things that we are not able to obtain. This is often interpreted by critics of Stoicism to mean that we should not dare to achieve new heights—and without that sort of spirit, where would the human race be? But that’s not at all what is meant here. The Stoics are simply advising us to calibrate our efforts to the likelihood of the results we may obtain, based on our best judgment of that likelihood. To attempt the impossible, or what is clearly not achievable for us, is to waste a lot of time and energy. If there is something we have in short supply, it is time.

Incidentally, if you’ve heard of someone achieving the impossible, by definition whatever was achieved was not impossible. Modern Stoic Larry Becker writes about the “axiom of futility” in his book A New Stoicism: do not feel compelled to do things that are not possible for you to do. It seems to be eminently reasonable advice, and Stoicism is all about being reasonable.