Key ideas 

1. A happy person knows the bounds of pleasures. Others just use philosophy as a cover to be unconstrained in their pursuit of pleasure. 
2. You cannot be happy unless you know the difference between normal desires and wild and neverending desires. Wild desires are insatiable. 
3. Too much pleasure leads to unhappiness. Use your reason as a guide to moderate it. 

Epicurus is virtuous, but his message is misleading 

My Stoic friends may not want to hear this, but I think Epicurus was upright and holy; and, if you examine it closely, even stern. He reduces pleasure to a very narrow compass and asks it to submit to the same rule we submit virtue to—to follow nature. Luxury, however, is not satisfied with what is enough for nature. 

What is the result? The epicurean message provides cover for vices. 

Those who think that happiness consists of laziness, alternating between gluttony and extravagance, need a good patron for a bad action. They become Epicureans because they were led to do so by the attractive name of the school. 

Followers misinterpret Epicurus 

When they become Epicureans, they do not follow what they teach there but continue with the ideas they brought with them. Having learned to think that their vices are compatible with the principles of Epicureanism, they indulge in them. They no longer do so timidly and in dark corners but boldly, in broad daylight. 

I will not, therefore, like most people in our school, say that the Epicurean sect teaches crime. Here’s what I say: people speak about it unfavorably. It has a bad reputation and yet it does not deserve it. 

Its very sight gives an opportunity for scandal and encourages people’s lower desires. It is like a brave man dressed as a woman. His chastity is assured, his manhood is safe, his body is not submitted to anything disgraceful, but his hand holds a drum (like a priest of goddess Cybele). 

Normal desires are not wild and endless 

Choose, then, some honorable description for your school, one that will arouse the mind. The description that you now have over your door belongs to vices. Those who align themselves with virtue provide proof of their noble character. Those who follow pleasure are weak, worn out, degrade their humanity, likely to fall into vices. Unless someone shows them the difference between what is normal desire and what is wild and neverending, the more they are satisfied, the more insatiable they become. 

Too much pleasure is hurtful 

Come on, then! Let virtue lead the way. Then every step will be safe. Too much pleasure is hurtful. But, with virtue, we need not worry about excess of any kind because moderation is a part of virtue itself. Something that injures itself cannot be a good thing. What better guide can there be than reason, if we are rational by nature? 

So, if this pleases you and you are willing to move towards a happy life, let virtue be your guide. Let pleasure follow and hang about the body like a shadow. Only a mind that is not capable of great things ill hand over virtue, the highest of all qualities, as a handmaid to pleasure. 

Think about this 

Too much pleasure is hurtful… Something that injures itself cannot be a good thing. What better guide can there be than reason, if we are rational by nature?

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In the THRTEENTH chapter of his discourse On The Happy Life, Seneca tells us that, to be happy, we should stop pursuing pleasure, and instead pursue virtue. This is an excerpt from Stoic Happiness, a plain English version of Seneca’s On the Happy Life, published by The Stoic Gym. 

https://amzn.to/2I0mbVW 

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