Living the good life

Stoicism has a simple goal: live a good life by trying to be a good person. And while that simplicity can give clarity, I have so often encountered people for whom it causes so much distress. How? Well, if you look at the ways in which the Stoics defined “good,” you will see an austere, idealistic, and perfectionist definition of the word, such that virtually none of us can achieve it. The only good person is the sage; but the sage is as rare as the phoenix. The Stoics say those who cannot reach sagehood will never know true happiness, will never truly be good. That austerity can feel isolating, sending some in a desperate spiral ending in the realization that every choice they make is morally imperfect, seemingly by design.

To truly grapple with the moral implications of our lives will lead you to conclude that there are very good reasons the sage as the Stoics defined it is an impossibility. It will also make you consider that their striking assertions about the good life are… a bit impractical for a philosophy predicated on practicality. Take your diet, for instance. If you live in modern society, which I’m guessing you do because you’re reading this on a personal computer or a smartphone – likely in a climate-controlled room in a cookie-cutter home in a cookie-cutter neighbourhood or a prefab apartment in a building and city full of them – then I’m guessing you get most of your food from a grocery store. And not to burst your bubble, but the grocery store is just a mire of moral dilemmas for the modern Stoic.

The moral implications of our choices

What you choose to purchase, what you choose to eat, has so many implications for your moral character that they are hard to quantify. Let’s take the produce aisle. You’re looking at a pineapple and you decide to buy it. It’ll go great in a smoothie, you think. But, where did that pineapple come from? Likely the Philippines or Hawai’i, which means it was shipped halfway across the world just to land at your doorstep. Supporting your local grocery store by purchasing non-native foods means you’re also supporting the mass agricultural industry, one of the major contributors to global emissions and local ecological and environmental harms caused by shipping and pesticide runoff and groundwater contaminations. Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Then you have to think about the historical consequences of purchasing that pineapple. If it came from Hawai’i, you’re supporting the very same corporations that literally engineered the annexation and gradual destruction of a centuries-old sovereign kingdom, whose native peoples are poorer and less healthy than other ethnicities on those islands.

You may be thinking: well, John, I don’t have any control over where that pineapple came from. No, you don’t. But recall that the Stoics asserted everything in the cosmos is connected, no matter how seemingly tenuously to our limited perspectives. And in choosing to buy that pineapple despite now knowing the greater impact, you have decided that your delicious smoothie is more important than the wellbeing of the planet and of exploited peoples. And even if you decide to give up pineapples forever now, can you do that with all the food you buy? Can you afford to live a locally-sourced, no-meat, no pesticide diet from the farmer’s market in your area? This moral perfectionism and idealism can extend to every facet of your life. It can overwhelm you to really try thinking about all of the ways in which we fail to be a “good” person, per the Stoics.

There’s a reason nobody in The Good Place ever went there.

When is it good enough?

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have figured out that this isn’t the way to a good life. And yet, Stoicism is a philosophy of life, for every part of it. How, though? How can you follow Stoicism and accept in the depths of your soul that you are not a “good” person, by the conventional definition according to the philosophy you hold dear? Well, eventually, we all have to draw a line. There is a point at which we have to acknowledge that the pursuit of moral perfection will lead us to misery. And there is a point at which we have to accept that “good” is not really becoming a sage.

Being good is being thoughtful and doing what you can, when you can, within reasonable limits. And while that doesn’t mean that there are no moral implications in the clothes you buy or the people with whom you associate, it does mean that you can realize there’s a certain point at which you can be satisfied that the best you can do doesn’t mean the best anyone can do. For all the perfectionists out there, by all means apply Stoicism to every facet of your life. Just, for your own good (no pun intended), don’t go down the rabbit hole. That you want to be good – and try – is good enough.

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