This book attempts to sell the reader on a pop version of Stoicism as a way of life, and as one would expect with such a purpose is easy to read. The author is a professor of philosophy who was interested in obtaining a philosophy of life, and since academic philosophy does not provide this looked into Stoicism. Zen Buddhism was discounted, apparently because it seems too difficult for the modern man, and few other competing strategies are discussed. This is somewhat surprising, as the author is a prof and since he is attempting to sell the reader on pop Stoicism - Stoicism Lite. A few related (at least to causal thought) approaches such as Humanism, philosophical Taoism, and Confucianism jump to mind [1]. This lack of comparison is made even more glaring since the author spends time (our time) rambling about "what if I made the wrong choice? what if Stoicism is not the true path?". Gee, what if? How about you look around instead of arguing/whining in a vacuum?
Never-the-less even without a comparison of other approaches Stoicism as presented looks good. The text could easily be dropped 20-25% in length and retain the good parts. Stripping out empty rhetorical questions, the well intended but weak modern justification of Stoicism based on evolutionary psychology [2], the continuous chatter and mild talking down to the reader [3], and generally taking a more aggressive editing approach would have tightened up the presentation, but since the intent is to soft sell the reader on pop Stoicism this doesn't matter too much - the book remains an easy read. And perhaps the flaws I see are a selling point which make the book "approachable"?
So what makes up Stoicism and makes it a compelling way of life? Here - where it matters - the book excels, giving an easily digestible and simple sketch of Stoic tools.
Goal: Tranquility.
Base Approach: Reason & Observation.
Psychological Techniques: 5 main ones, in order of returns
(1) Negative Visualization (gratitude),
(2) Dichotomy of Control (focus on what you can affect),
(3) Fatalism (of past/present - look for the positive here, focus on changing future not "if onlys" about the past),
(4) Self-Denial (reset your adaptation point, so your base life feels great),
(5) Meditation (reflection).
It seems that modern evidence has confirmed all these approaches are useful. There is a famous gratitude study that showed that people who kept a gratitude journal had surprising improvement in mental health versus a regular (reflective) journal control, people who "fight the tide" drown in life while those who compete against themselves and what they can control tend to do well, cognitive psychology - which includes a positive past/present fatalism view - demonstrates better results in treating depression then medication [4], hedonic adaptation ("keeping up with the Jones' ") is a well known problem that self-denial can help by resetting, and reflection has long been proscribed to improve ones life ("an unexamined life is not worth living") as this allows problems to be caught early ("an once of prevention...") and choices and paths seen and trimmed [5].
The book has a boiler plate intro/background, then (the meat) discussion on these 5 tools in the Stoic tool set, discusses some Stoic advice, and wraps up with the authors reflections on living the Stoic life and an appendix on further reading. The advice part is pretty weak - rewarmed advice is never as good as reading the original - but important for keeping the text self-contained. I'd like a little less hand-holding and interpretation here, but it goes with the chatty style of the book.
All in all - this is a fast and easy read, well worth going through. The core is the section on Stoic Psychology (about 60 pages of the total roughly 300 pages - which includes a bibliography and an index) and I would recommend reading this first [6]. If you get interested, I'd then skip right to the primary texts. If you are not hooked on the Stoic Life Plan, then read the rest of the book through to get the pop version and some take away tid-bits and advice.
Stoicism is a basic framework that you likely partially use and have found on your own. The consistent framework, strong literature, and pedigree makes Stoicism compelling and worth considering. Essentially an exercise plan for life logistics with some good teachers. If I had to put Stoicism in a nutshell, I'd say it is all about the Dichotomy of Control - focus on what you can control (i.e. your character and actions) using reason and honesty as your tools.
Notes:
[1] As Humanism likely has a strong influence on many scientists and artists and other intellectuals the lack of discussion seems strange, are not most University like people at least implicitly affected by this? And as Confucianism is getting some play currently due to China looking for a replacement for Marxist thought it is also strange that an author writing a pop book would overlook the opportunity to discuss this.
[2] The evolutionary psychology section is much too hand wavy - if you want to add this sugar coating put more effort into this, and the "Zeus" claim made by the the original Stoics - which this whole evolutionary psychology spiel attempts to address - can be interpreted in a metaphorical manner as writings suggest that Zeus/logos/nature were used somewhat interchangeably). i.e. this whole section seems un-necessary to begin with, and poorly done.
[3] A danger of repeatably teaching introductory philosophy? From my memories of the handful of second year philosophy classes I took the level of discourse is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
[4] Studies show a roughly equal success rate in treating an "episode", but cognitive psychology appears to prevents relapse better than medication.
[5] Instead of the evolutionary psychology section I would have much preferred to see a results based justification, using examples of studies and other evidence such as briefly sketched here. The author discusses hedonic adaptation, but could sketch out more of "positive psychology", and other, findings that support the Stoic tool set.
[6] If you are looking for discussion regarding the Stoic frame, such as briefly touched in my "filter" post, this book is not were you want to go. You will not find terms such as "kataleptic" or a deep look at the subtle and deep Stoic frame in "Good Life" - this is a pop view after all. The Stoic frame may be where real changes in your views come from. To use a hackneyed analogy - taking on "Stoic Lite" is like "learning" a new and more powerful programming language, without actually learning the key new mode of expression that makes the language different and powerful. You can use Python like you use Basic, or you can dig deep and learn something new and learn Python instead of using Python notation to write Basic code. Sure, you will likely get some gain and pleasure moving to Python and writing you Basic code in it but this approach misses out on the deepest and most significant gains. The Stoicism Lite as promoted by "Good Life" is basically standard pop psychology (i.e. self help genre), that may be pleasant, easy, and give some important gains, but possibly misses out on the most radical and important aspects of Stoicism. I say "possibly" as I have only barely scratched the surface of Stoic thought and thus cannot provide a useful claim either way. It does seem that the Stoics thought deeply about human action and have created a subtle approach that can give us some insights, as I suspect this framework is fairly different than the standard approach we pick up in our society.
