Reading the book, I had no trouble understanding how negative visualization could be an effective antidote against "hedonic adaptation." By imagining ourselves to be homeless, for instance, we can reset our desire for a more luxurious home and once again appreciate the roof over our head that we started taking for granted shortly after moving in.
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Irvine, a professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, writes that Stoicism was one of many competing philosophies (such as the Cynics and the Epicureans) that ran schools to teach a "philosophy of life" to students in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics were interested in leading a life of "tranquility," meaning a life free of "anger, anxiety, fear, grief, and envy." To achieve such a life the Stoics developed, in the words of historian Paul Veyne, a "paradoxical recipe for happiness," that included the practice of "negative visualization." By frequently and vividly imagining worst-case scenarios -- the death of a child, financial catastrophe, ruined health -- the Stoics believed you would learn to appreciate what you have, and curb your insatiable appetite for more material goods, social status, and other objects of desire.
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普通人做一切事都是为了快乐,而圣贤做的事情没有一件事是为了快乐。 按照良策实现欲望后,新的欲望又会产生,这意味着无论我们多么努力满足自己的欲望,我们都难以真正满足,因此更有效的对策是致力于控制欲望,并好好经营我们已经拥有的事物。
幸福并不依赖于心理治疗师或政治家的许诺,人类远比心理学家所宣称的那样坚韧,我们有能力来对自己的幸福负起责任。
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