Required Reading: Letter 23: On The True Joy Which Comes From Philosophy.
“Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy.”
Is this possible to the many who go on day by day as we get berated by life? Can you feel joy when the body ills in pain; when the bills are piling up; when the mortgage is in pending foreclosure; when the car is grounded and the bank account is negative? Can you feel joy?
Oh! Yes you can! It’s when as the teacher states, you can “Despise death with a care-free-countenance; or can open your door to poverty, or hold the curb on your pleasures or contemplate the endurance of pain. He who ponders these things in his heart is indeed full of joy; but it is not a cheerful joy.”
Yet, it is the joy we on this journey of philosophy must endure regardless of the current and future state of affairs. For a man or woman of this nature is on certain footing; he although tripping sometimes, will always find his or her balance. And what is this all for? What is the benefit?
Well, let him continue “Do the one thing that can render you really happy: cast aside and trample underfoot all the things that glitter outwardly and are held out to you by another or as obtainable from another; look toward the true good, and rejoice only in that which comes from your own store—your very self which covets with safety the real good.”
This is our aim regardless of the treacherous path we must labor in order to find true joy. And how does this come? Well, let’s consult Seneca once more “It comes from a good conscience, from honourable purposes, from right actions, from contempt of the gifts of chance, from an even and calm way of living which treads but one path.”
What is your one path? My hope is that we are treading it together; and if we are; I’ll see you somewhere along, perhaps in front or behind; farewell.
Word of the day:
Pinnacle (noun): culmination or climax, peak, apex, summit, zenith, acme, crowning point (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus 2nd Edition).
Quotations:
“Do you ask what is the foundation of a sound mind? It is, not to find joy in useless things.”
“The man who is goaded ahead by hope of anything, though it be within reach, though it be easy of access, and though his ambitions have never played him false, is troubled and unsure of himself.”
“There are only a few who control themselves and their affairs by a guiding purpose; the rest do not proceed; they are merely swept along, like objects afloat in a river.”
“Therefore, we should decide what we wish, and abide by the decision.”
“It is bothersome always to be beginning life” -Epicurus.
“They live ill who are always beginning to live.” -Epicurus.
“It is because the life of such persons is always incomplete. But a man cannot stand prepared for the approach of death if he has just begun to live.”
“We must make it our aim already to have lived long enough. No one deems that he has done so, if he is just on the point of planning his life.”
“Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living…some men have left off living before they have begun.”
‘There is a time to live and a time to retire; know what time you are in’ – Linius Africanus.
Questions:
1) Do you feel joyful? How often?
2) Is your joy depedent upon externals?
3) Do you have a method of feeling joy everyday? What is it?
4) Are you able to feel joy even at your lowest point? Have you experienced an extremely “low point”? Recall it and supplant that feeling with joy.
Activities:
1) Practice being joyful always—Smile, laugh, sing, dance especially dancing everyday.
2) Take on a Positive Mental Attitude anytime something goes “wrong”.
3) Recall past joyful experiences in your life and bask in them daily.
4) Anytime a past negative experience enters your thoughts smile and say to self ‘I’m grateful for the experience and I forgive anyone who caused this to hurt me.’—Do this daily.
