The benefits of considering the worst.
According to William Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life one of the “psychological techniques” we can learn from the Stoics is what he calls negative visualization. If managing our desires is a key to tranquility then learning to desire what we already have is essential. One way to do this is to consider how our lives could be worse, i.e., negative visualization.
Irvine points to a psychological phenomenon called hedonic adaptation in which, for example, lottery winners finally live the life they’ve dreamed about and end up no happier than they were before winning. They become dissatisfied with their luxuries. This happens to everyone, not just the wealthy. Negative visualization forestalls this process by extinguishing acquisitiveness and encouraging thankfulness for what we already have.
One way to exercise negative visualization, suggests Irvine, is to consider you own and your family’s death. It was here that I realized that, taken the wrong way, negative visualization could cause paralysis. If I was to really live this day as if it were my last then the only thing I’d do is spend time with family and friends. There would be a whole host of good things that I would normally be doing that I wouldn’t do. I’d suggest, then, that rather than asking “What would I do today if I knew it was my last day alive?” we should ask “If I die tomorrow will I be able to look back at today and know that I spent it wisely?” By rephrasing the question in this way it causes me to consider my priorities, not just plan my last meal.
It seems to me then that negative visualization is a good idea so long as it is oriented to thankfulness and proper prioritization and not as an exercise in morbidity.
One variation of this I’ve heard Dennis Prager espouse is that no one asks “Why did this happen to me?” when things are going good. As soon as bad stuff happens, we immediately question why its there (with an dose of self-righteousness – as though we are too good to deserve anything bad), but we don’t often ask why we are so blessed when we are so undeserving of it.
Reflecting on how blessed we are (particularly from things that we couldn’t have controlled) is another helpful way to orient ourselves toward gratitude and thankfulness, and in so doing, happiness in all situations.
Brant
April 21, 2009 at 10:09 am
Irvine’s book “On Desire: Why We Want What We Want” has been particularly helpful to me. Some of his methods really have helped me realize just how much I have, and in that way have actually moved me to be more giving and active.
Andy B.
April 23, 2009 at 10:15 am
I’ll have to check that book out. If I recall correctly I think he said in the book I’m reading that when he started researching for the book on desire he expected to become a Zen Buddhist. In the process, however, he found the Stoics, who were much more suited to his temperament. Thus, this book on the Stoics.
Jeremy
April 23, 2009 at 10:30 am