Living Like a Stoic

For the past 6 years I’ve been engaging in the project of Living Like a Stoic for a Week. This is an international event. Why would anyone want to do that? I’ve already answered that question here.

For the past 5 years, I’ve been doing this project with other students to help them better understand the extent to which the Greco-Roman Philosophers provide us with tools for thinking about how to live well. More shameless self-promotion.

So, this year I decided to try my hand at Living Like a Stoic with students at Yavapai College. In large part, since I was already going to be taking on this activity by myself, I figured I could learn along with students. And that’s exactly what this activity is, it’s an opportunity to learn with students. My journey through philosophy, having been in college for over 15 years, has exposed me to many theories regarding the good life and what it means to flourish (that eudaimonia I mentioned in my last post), yet, I recognize that each of us has much to learn while we’re still alive. In many ways, we will never be perfect at living life, so why not continue to take on activities that will help us get a little better at it?

There seems to be a theme in my posts. While my last post dealt with the common sacrifices that both teachers and students have made, this one deals with our shared interest / concern with learning how to live well. That is the reason students come to college, right? They want to learn how to become better nurses, teachers, entrepreneurs, designers, artists, and…maybe even humans?

The Live Like a Stoic for a Week event has a different theme each year, ranging from love, emotions, professional lives, and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. This year’s theme was on happiness. But not happiness as that momentary feeling that comes and goes. Instead, Stoic happiness is what is obtained when one lives a virtuous life–a life that has those characteristics (e.g., courage) that aids someone in his or her capacity to fulfill his or her potential. The bummer is that according to the Stoics we can’t tell if we are happy. Only a virtuous person is capable of judging if we have flourished–and this can only be done once we are no longer living.

So, what’s the point? In some ways, to adopt Kant’s language, the Stoic conception of happiness serves as a regulative ideal. It is an ideal we have in place, asking ourselves “what would a virtuous life be like?” While we cannot really know what that life is, we can strive to obtain such a life. In doing so, we end up becoming better humans–more compassionate, caring, charitable, courageous, and, yes, even more happy.

What was involved? There were multiple events, including three evening lectures by YC faculty dealing with history, philosophy, psychology, and art. The highlight, however, was the morning meditation sessions that took place at 6am Monday through Friday. Why so early? Well, first off, what else are you going to do at that time? Sleep? 🙂 Second, the opportunity to wake with the stars allows you to wake with the sole purpose of improving yourself. You’re not waking to go to your job or the gym, you’re waking to focus on how you can live a better life. Third, it’s truly rewarding to begin the session when it is dark and finish with the rising sun.

So, I invite you to next year’s Live Like a Stoic for a Week, where we can learn from each other how to be better humans, while using the tools that have been provided for us since 300 BCE.

BTW…this is Andrew Winters. I was told to provide my name.