Louis J Sheehan 63440 H18

This is intended as a hopefully helpful, but somewhat lighthearted look at ancient philosophical beliefs that would make five fine New Year's resolutions for today. They are meant as a counter to typical New Year's resolutions, like these:

1. Lose Weight
2. Pay Off Debt
3. Save Money
4. Get a Better Job
5. Get Fit
6. Eat Right
7. Get a Better Education
8. Drink Less Alcohol
9. Quit Smoking Now
10. Reduce Stress Overall
11. Reduce Stress at Work
12. Take a Trip
13. Volunteer to Help Others
Source: U.S. Government site

Have you written a list of New year's Resolutions? Does it include something geared to making you more like a Hollywood ideal? Something like losing weight? We start each new year with a clean slate, but as soon as we break down and eat that tempting cream-filled puff pastry, we think we've failed and give up. Might as well have a couple of beers and a a pizza. Oops! By February the scale has moved in the wrong direction. One question we should ask before coming up with the duly anguished-over creative list of new resolutions is whether or not they're the result of social pressure. It may seem easier fitting into someone else's list of shoulds than changing our own attitudes, but if you've ever tried to quit smoking because your family begs you to, you probably know that's not enough.

People compile New Year's Resolutions in an effort to improve specific aspects of themselves, thinking behavior elicited by the resolutions will make them better people. If they volunteer one day a month (making them better in the brotherly-love department) and exercise three times a week (back to conforming to social pressure mode), including a yoga class (eliminating stress one minute at a time), and if they put 10% into a money market account (for retirement, as the news media drums into our heads each December), life will magically improve. Even if it did work, this seems like a piecemeal approach in need of a master plan. And therein lies the beauty of ancient philosophy.

Masterplan: Emulate the Stoics
This list of 5 resolutions includes passages from the writing of leading Roman Stoics, Epictetus (really a Greek, but he lived in Rome), Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca, with applications or parallels in the modern (or at least post-classical) world. The Stoics have had a profound influence on Christianity and modern philosophy, so the ideas may seem very familiar. There are even sayings and modern song lyrics reflecting the Stoic philosophy. One problem of the Stoics for our contemporary, secular world is the ongoing references to god. This god is really more like reason, nature, or logos, but may still cause trouble for non-theists. To avoid this, I have attempted to minimize the god-context in my selections.
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The Stoics believed in one basic behavior: being good. People do this by, among other things,

1. living according to nature,
2. helping others,
3. commitment to self-improvement routines,
4. being dutiful, which may include attempting to persuade others of one's beliefs, and
5. central to all else, maintaining a proper attitude.

The good person is not evil. He also happens to be a philosopher. This may be another sticking point for moderns, but the self-help books so popular today are like philosophy, so if the idea of being a philosopher is too profound, consider these suggestions as well-testified popular psychology instead of philosophy.

1. Live According to Nature: To Everything There Is a Season
Stoicism comes from the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, which began around 300 B.C. There was no electricity. There were no in vitro pregnancies. Most people used their own feet for transportation. People followed the natural cycles of day, night, and the seasons. Everything took time. We've been spoiled by artificial light, microwave ovens, airplanes, and other conveniences, so we no longer have to worry much about natural cycles. Instead, we impatient multi-taskers try to cram everything in. This means that however much the ancient Stoics might have had to struggle to try to live according to nature, we've got to work even harder.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
- Epictetus: Discourses Chap. xv.

Stoics believed in the idea of one universal human family. Just as it is contrary to nature to cut off your nose to spite your face, so it is contrary to nature to hurt members of your family, even if accepting people without being annoyed by them requires patience.

For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations Book II


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2. Help Your Fellow Man: Do Unto Others
We are all members of the human family. In recent years we've heard that it takes a village to raise a child and many of the countries of Europe joined together into the European Union. In these and many other ways, we see that we are all in it together. The Stoics wrote about it, and in 1624, so did John Donne (Meditation XVII):

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Because we are all part of one "family," we should work to its good and not try to separate ourselves.

As thou thyself, whoever thou art, were made for the perfection and consummation, being a member of it, of a common society; so must every action of thine tend to the perfection and consummation of a life that is truly sociable. What action soever of thine therefore that either immediately or afar off, hath not reference to the common good, that is an exorbitant and disorderly action; yea it is seditious; as one among the people who from such and such a consent and unity, should factiously divide and separate himself.
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations XXI

Labour not as one to whom it is appointed to be wretched, nor as one that either would be pitied, or admired; but let this be thine only care and desire; so always and in all things to prosecute or to forbear, as the law of charity, or mutual society doth require.
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations 9.X

Helping others is acting according to nature, but it also has beneficial personal repercussions.

Wouldst thou have men speak good of thee? speak good of them. And when thou hast learned to speak good of them, try to do good unto them, and thus thou wilt reap in return their speaking good of thee.
- Epictetus: Golden Sayings L