Practice negative visualization
Deliberately imagining loss of what you have counters hedonic adaptation and deepens gratitude. The exercise prepares the mind for misfortune while sharpening appreciation.
How to Be a Stoic
9 ideas
Philosophy as a way of life
Pigliucci argues Stoicism is not abstract theory but a set of daily practices and exercises for living well. Reading it changes nothing unless it is enacted.
Cosmopolitan duty to others
The Stoic sage sees all humans as fellow members of one community, owing them justice and care. Self-mastery is paired with, not opposed to, social obligation.
Dichotomy of control, with archer refinement
Sort everything into what is fully up to you (your judgments, intentions, and choices) and what is not (outcomes, reputation, health, other people's actions). Pigliucci uses Cicero's archer to make this practical. The archer controls training, aim and release but not the wind, so the proper goal is to shoot well, and hitting the target is a 'preferred indifferent' to be accepted either way.
Three disciplines: desire, action, assent
Stoic practice is organized into three disciplines. Desire trains you to want only what is in your control. Action governs how you treat others through the virtues of justice and care for the human community. Assent trains you to examine impressions before accepting them, so you do not endorse automatic judgments like 'this is terrible.' Each discipline links a virtue to a domain of life, giving a checklist for self-examination.
Impressions are judgments, not events
What disturbs us is not things but our judgments about things. An insult or setback arrives as a raw impression, and the harm comes from assenting to the added evaluation that it is bad. Inserting a pause ('you are just an impression, let me test you') turns emotional reactivity into a choice point.
Stoic ethics survives without Stoic physics
The ancient Stoics grounded ethics in a providential, rational cosmos (the Logos). Pigliucci argues that modern science has discarded this physics and theology, yet the ethics still holds. Humans remain social animals capable of reason, so 'live according to nature' can be reread as 'apply reason to social living' without any cosmic god.
Death and the open door
The Stoics treated contemplating mortality as a practice. It reminds you that life is borrowed and makes you value the present rather than fear the inevitable. Pigliucci also takes seriously Epictetus's 'open door': under extreme, irremediable suffering, suicide can be a rational choice. He defends this as a considered position on autonomy and dignity, not despair.
Preferred and dispreferred indifferents
Health, wealth, and reputation are not goods in themselves, because they can be used well or badly. Only virtue is unconditionally good. They are still reasonable to pursue ('preferred') or avoid ('dispreferred'). This lets a Stoic seek comfort and success while refusing to trade integrity for them.