The Stoics believed that cheerfulness was surface level. Real joy, they said, is deep and unseen. It’s a joy that, as Seneca put it, “Will never run dry once you’ve laid claim to its source.”
“So when people say that the Stoics are dour or depressive, they’re really missing the point,” says Ryan Holiday. “Who cares if someone is bubbly when times are good? What kind of accomplishment is that?”
And it’s not just the ancient Stoics who believed this. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Happiness does not come from the seeking, it is never ours by right.” Both Aristotle and Viktor Frankl said happiness is not pursued, it ensues. It’s in the effort we give and the principles we live by.
“Most people think peace and joy are the goals of the spiritual life,” says yogi and spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. “This is a fallacy. Peace and joy are the basic requirements for a life of well-being.” Once you stop making joy the destination, he says, you can start living as “an expression of your joyfulness”.
So, if joy is not the end goal, but instead a constant outlook and a prerequisite to living the good life, how can we cultivate it right now? Is that possible? Even during the stress and busyness of everyday life?
The Stoics would say not only is it possible to have joy right now, but it’s only possible to have joy right now. It’s impossible to have joy any other time.
Here are 7 places to find immediate joy, according to the Stoics:
In This Very Moment
“No one confines his unhappiness to the present.” –Seneca
“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.” –Marcus Aurelius
The ancient Stoics were heavily involved in public life. They were rulers, politicians, teachers, slaves, spouses, parents, speakers, and writers. Marcus Aurelius, as ruler of Rome, had enormous responsibilities and pressures. He had decisions to make, administrative tasks to complete, strategies to devise, and people to manage. It never ended. How did he manage it all and still find time for philosophy?
Well…he didn’t. At least, not exactly. Philosophy wasn’t something he made time for—it was something he lived at all times. It wasn’t a hobby or passionate interest to study in his spare time, it was a way of life. He succeeded not in spite of his philosophical life, but because of it. “No role is so well-suited for philosophy than the one you’re in right now,” he told himself.
Marcus would remind himself dozens of times throughout Meditations to not worry about the future or bemoan the past. He was present. He approached each problem calmly and thoroughly, content to build his life, “action by action … and be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can.”
He knew that at each moment, he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
The same is true for us. Be here, he repeats again and again. Be here, and be at peace.
In Practicing Proper Judgment
“Where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine.” –Marcus Aurelius
“People try to get away from it all — to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.
By going within.
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful — more free of interruptions — than your own soul.” –Marcus Aurelius
Life is a balancing act. It can be hard not to think that we need to “get away from it all” to have peace and joy. But the Stoics said this is nonsense. We don’t need a vacation or day of leisure to experience joy. We can feel it right now. In fact, there is no other time we can feel it.
But how is that possible? The world is noisy and, like us, imperfect. People are rude, we’re juggling a million things, the traffic won’t budge. How do we feel joy during all of this?
The short answer, according to the Stoics, is this: we can use our reasoning ability to put order to the chaos. No matter where we are or what’s going on around us, we can practice proper judgment.
How great is that?
We can use our reasoning ability to put order to the chaos.
Marcus Aurelius wrote about this often. He said, “Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions,” that “life is opinion,” and that “the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts”.
Epictetus said that our ability to reason separates us from men, and allows us to emulate the divine. “It’s not things that upset us, but our opinions about those things.” It takes one careless thought, one quick lapse in reason to make a bad decision or feel despair, he said.
So we must be mindful, every minute, of our perceptions. Because the way we choose to see things is the way they are. Proper use of this ability is the difference between despair and joy.
In What You Control
“Let a person shift their opinions only to what belongs in the field of their own choice, and I guarantee that person will have peace of mind, whatever is happening around them.” –Epictetus
This is the core of Stoicism: some things are in your control, some things are out of your control. Focus your efforts on the former, align your will with the latter.
Sadhguru Jaggie Vasudev is the founder of Isha, an organization dedicated to spiritual activities and boasts millions of volunteers. How does he handle the stress of leading all of those volunteers, many who are untrained, and all who are, by definition of a volunteer, unfireable? With a Stoic approach. “You won’t ever see me distressed,” he says, “because my way of being is not in any way enslaved to what’s happening outside. This is not an otherworldly achievement. It is possible for everyone to live this way.” In other words, he concerns himself only with his own thoughts and actions.
Good and evil exist only in our own thoughts and actions. Marcus Aurelius said that God (or a higher power) would never have made it so we could be harmed outside of our own reasoned choices. What incredible power! Yet we throw this power away when we let things outside of our control affect us.
“Choose not to be harmed,” Marcus reminded himself, “and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.”
In Your Own Good Character
“The fight for virtue is no small matter, since what is at stake is nothing less than happiness.” -Epictetus
The Stoics said your own good character is the only way to guarantee lasting joy.
You can look high and low, Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, but nowhere on earth will you find anything better than courage, self-control, justice, and wisdom.
And the best part is that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can always practice one of these virtues. And because you can always practice one of these virtues, nothing can prevent you from living a good life. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you can practice moderating your anger. If your plans go awry, you can practice accepting what’s outside of your control. In every situation, there is an opportunity to practice a virtue, an opportunity to live a good life.
In What You Already Have
“Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.” –Seneca
Who is more joyful and imperturbable: the person who desperately wants power or a new car or a bigger house, or the person who’s indifferent toward those things?
There’s a reason the Stoics spoke so much about limiting desire. They knew that desiring external things paled in comparison to not desiring them.
This idea is echoed in both eastern and western philosophy. In Awareness, Anthony De Mello says, “There is only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have … right now, you have everything you need to be in bliss.”
Voltaire compared a new desire to a new sadness. James Clear says happiness is “the state you enter when you no longer want to change your state.” Or, as Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck said, “What makes it unbearable is your mistaken belief it can be cured.”
The Stoics said a fool desires what she does not have. A wise person desires what she already has.
“Not ‘Some way to sleep with her’—but a way to stop wanting to. Not ‘some way to save my child’—but a way to lose your fear. Redirect your prayers like that,” Marcus Aurelius said, “and watch what happens.”
In Helping Others
“You must live for your neighbor, if you would live for yourself.” –Seneca
Marcus Aurelius wrote extensively about acting for the common good. Joy is found in helping others, he said. And not just when we’re asked, but proactively and without expectations. We must be like “a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return,” and not “make a fuss about it, [but look] forward to bearing fruit again in season.”
Eleanor Roosevelt had been dealt tragic blows in her life: the loss of her father, an unfaithful husband and rocky marriage, a troubled childhood, and much else. How was she able to not only overcome these obstacles, but also find happiness? By helping people. By doing good for others and being of service to them. This, she said, is the surest way to happiness.
“Most religions tell us to be good because God said so,” says Ryan Holiday. “Or they tell us not to be bad because God will punish us. Stoicism is different. While not incompatible with religion, it makes a different case for virtue: A person who lives selfishly will not go to hell. They will live in hell.”
Leo Tolstoy said if you accept your role as a servant to others, “all of your bad feelings, your anxiety, alarm, uncertainty, and dissatisfaction will be changed into calmness and peace. You will be filled inside with a clear vision of your purpose, and with a great joy.”
When we help others find happiness, we find it for ourselves.
In the Next Action You Take
“Joy for human beings lies in proper human work. And proper human work consists in: acts of kindness to other human beings, disdain for the stirrings of the senses, identifying trustworthy impressions, and contemplating the natural order and all that happens in keeping with it.” –Marcus Aurelius
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl—whose philosophy was similar to Stoicism—says we are unhappy when we don’t have a cause to fight for, a virtue to develop, or a purpose that transcends our problems. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances,” he says, “only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
The Stoics found joy in sober, attentive work. They found satisfaction in the effort, not the result. “If you do the job in a principled way,” Marcus Aurelius told himself, “with diligence, energy, and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions … if you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended—then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.”
Don’t take the long road, Marcus Aurelius said. Everything you’re seeking is at hand, you just have to grab it.
Freedom, satisfaction, joy. All are found in the next action you take.
