A Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living

What is actually yours, then? The proper use, through your considerate judgment, of what life loans to you.

Every time you have a strong desire for something (or a strong aversion to something, which amounts to the same thing, really), train yourself to talk to the source of that desire (or aversion) and to say, “You are just an impression, and may not be at all what you portray yourself to be! Let me take a closer look and see what’s what.” Then put the

From these observations they derived the fundamental axiom of their philosophy: a good human life, what the ancients called a eudaemonic life, is one that is lived by applying reason to the betterment of society.

Epictetus explicitly advises us in this respect: “Admit not sleep into your tender eyelids till you have reckoned up each deed of the day—How have I erred, what done or left undone? So start, and so review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad.”8 The goal is to implement the same two steps, cognitive and behavioral, wi

YOU ARE NOT DISTURBED BY things in themselves, but by your judgments of things.

Now here are three stages of wisdom: the unwise person blames other people for what are, in the end, her own judgments about things; the person who is making progress does not blame others, but only herself; the wise person does not blame even herself.

The same goes with life. It’s fine to enjoy its pleasures and to entertain yourself a little. But you should always keep in mind that at some point the voyage will be over, since it does not last forever.

Shift your goals from the external to the internal: repeat to yourself that your objective is not to hit the target, but to deliver the best shot of which you are capable;

In life, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, so equanimity toward outcomes (we “choose” them but we don’t “desire” them) is the only reasonable attitude to cultivate.