30 Rules to Live By: How Small Timeless Habits Completely Change Your View on Wealth, Desire And Everyday Vices to Reach Long-Lasting Happiness

Description

Previously published as Your Daily Dose of Stoic Wisdom by Thinknetic.

The problem isn’t that we are unhappy. It’s that we expect to be happy all of the time . . . 

Since the beginning of time, humankind has grappled with the quest for happiness. Be it expressed in religion, philosophy or bestselling literature; they all look for a way to reach that lofty goal.

This prompts the question: what does it mean to be happy? Is it found in the fabulous vacation pictures on a friend’s social media feed? The glamor of a celebrity flitting down the red carpet, trailed by scores of paparazzi?

You know your friend is in debt up to their ears because of those vacations. And, while you may not know celebrities, you read enough about them to know that happiness is a transient state for them, too. Can anyone be truly happy all of the time?

Part of the problem of the current condition is what we perceive happiness to be. In The Conversation, Rafael Euba, Consultant and Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry, baldly states happiness isn’t a natural outcome of the human experience.

Euba describes happiness as a “mental construct” that has imprisoned many, causing them to believe that they have failed because their lives aren’t blissfully happy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Contrast this to the Stoics’ attitude that a happy life results from managing one’s emotions, expectations, and reactions to external, lived reality.

They may have been stern-faced gentlemen, but many who have incorporated the ancient Greeks’ timeless wisdom into their daily lives report that they can face life’s challenges with greater equanimity . . . and are happier as a result.

After all, there is a reason why at the pinnacle of success, luminaries like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Bill Gates studied and admired the stoics.

30 Rules for Life breaks the all-encompassing power of thinkers like Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius down into 30 small and digestible steps.

Without being a primer on Stoicism or heavy and dry philosophy, the book is here to help you integrate its basic principles into your everyday experiences.