Authored by Jonathan Millimore via The Epoch Times,
Fifteen years ago, I lost a job.
The timing was bad. My wife and I had just purchased our first home, and we were expecting our first child.
As editor of a small publication, I had refused to spike a story we were set to publish (it involved questionable political dealings of a prominent politician). Spiking the story would have been easy, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt wrong. So I prepared a resignation letter, hoping it wouldn’t come to that. (It did.)
Losing one’s job is rarely a satisfying occasion. But for me, it was. For one, the move turned out to be very good for me professionally. More importantly, I had stood for something. This made me proud—after the sting wore off.
1. Do the Right Thing
Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the episode was pivotal in my character development. The great Roman thinker Cicero believed that doing the right thing in the face of consequences is an essential part of virtue.
“He who sacrifices his duty to expediency is like one who cuts down the ship’s mast to escape a storm,” Cicero (106–43 B.C.) wrote in “On Duties.” “He is saved for the moment, but shipwrecked forever.”
The moral is simple: On important things, stand firm on principle, even if it costs you.
Here are six more strategies from great philosophers that can help you build a better life.
2. Rule Your Inner Life, Not Other People
Plato (428–347 B.C.) once said that the “first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.” The Greek philosopher said it was the most “shameful and vile” of things to allow your inner desires to rule you.
Epictetus, writing 500 years later, urged people to focus energy inward. He believed happiness comes from moderating desires and choosing pleasures that are not enslaving. He wisely saw this as a path to freedom, both inward and outward. After all, a person who commands himself cannot be easily commanded by others.
Many people today focus their energy on trying to fix the world while neglecting their own inner life. This is folly. Conquer yourself first. Just remember, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
C.S. Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity”: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
A woman meditates in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 7, 2023. Oleksii Pidsosonnyi/The Epoch Times
3. Value Work and Take Pleasure In It
Many postmodern thinkers see work as degrading, coercive, and alienating.
That’s not just a bleak view of work—it’s a false one. Many of us have experienced not just the material fruits of work (a paycheck) but the less tangible fulfillment it offers. As a young man, I worked as a waiter, a roofer, and a garbage collector—jobs some call demeaning or “exploitative.” I don’t want to romanticize those jobs—they were hard—but I gained more than money from each of them. Work, with the proper mindset, is one of the surest paths to self-improvement. It is also part of human nature, when done freely.
“It is the natural desire of every man to better his condition when he is secure of enjoying the fruits of his own labour,” philosopher Adam Smith observed in “The Wealth of Nations.”
Smith saw the dignity and independence that work offers. Creating value builds both character and community, and it is one of the truest expressions of human liberty.
A waiter works at a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, on July 5, 2024. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images
4. Pursue Your Own Happiness
Oscar Wilde once observed, “Unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them.”
The quote puts the individual in his proper place and reminds us of something important: You are the one in charge of your life. Not the tribe. Not the state. In a free society, individuals decide what they want and value. This is not “selfishness.” It’s a social good. The philosopher John Stuart Mill observed that society flourishes when people are free to choose their own actions and pursue their own dreams.
“In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others,” Mill wrote in “On Liberty.”
Choosing one’s own path—“the pursuit of happiness,” in Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words—is central to human dignity and flourishing. Don’t let anyone choose yours, but choose wisely and accept the responsibility that comes with that freedom.
5. Cultivate Virtue as a Habit (Especially Humility)
Aristotle believed that virtue was not something rulers could impose. In fact, virtue requires choice. He also said virtue is demonstrated and developed by our actions.
“We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts,” the philosopher wrote in “Nicomachean Ethics.”
There’s a lot of confusion over virtue today. Many would have you think that your beliefs make you a virtuous person. Nonsense. Virtue is attained. We become virtuous not through belief but through practice. So dedicate yourself to the four cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and don’t forget to include humility, which Saint Augustine called “the foundation of all the other virtues.”
6. Face Death to Live Fully
The Roman philosopher Seneca (4 B.C.–A.D. 65) once said that the tragedy of life isn’t that it’s short, “but that we waste much of it. … So we must prepare for death every day.”
The words might sound macabre, but this is good advice. It’s easy to forget, but death is part of life. We don’t just lose loved ones along our way; we, too, will depart this earth. Writing in the journal First Things, filmmaker Caylan Ford said facing this reality comes with benefits.
“Awareness of death humbles us in our vanity, our hubris, and our contempt for others, and it dispels any illusions that we are in control of our fates,” she wrote.
Like many Greek thinkers, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius believed it was irrational to fear death, which was the most natural of all things. Plato, meanwhile, tells us that Socrates went to his grave cheerfully despite his unjust death sentence.
“I think that a man who has truly spent his life in philosophy is probably right to be of good cheer in the face of death,” Socrates says in Plato’s “Phaedo.”
By facing death and accepting mortality, you learn how to live more fully—and more wisely.
Budimir Jevtic/Shutterstock
7. Wake Up Right
My pastor says the first thing he does in the morning is get on his knees and pray. It’s a habit I’ve tried to adopt, but with little success. I share the anecdote for a reason: Everyone has heard the idiom about “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” It turns out that how (and when) we get out of bed matters.
It’s a cliché, but getting up early is important. There are clear benefits to rising early, including lower risk of depression. But how we get up matters almost as much as when. Marcus Aurelius thought it was so important that he prepared himself daily.
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil,” he wrote in “Meditations.”
Humans need sleep, but having the discipline to rise each morning and devote yourself—in mind and spirit—is important. As a father of three, I can attest that being present in the morning with one’s children—making them breakfast, getting them dressed, having them prepared for their day—is essential for a functioning family.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
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