The Stoic Challenge by William B. Irvine

The Stoics discovered that thinking of challenges as tests of character can dramatically alter our emotional response to them. The result is a surprisingly simple strategy for dealing with life's unpleasant and unexpected challenges-from minor setbacks like being caught in a traffic jam or having a flight cancelled to major setbacks like those experienced by physicist Stephen Hawking, who slowly lost the ability to move, and writer Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered from locked-in syndrome. This book uniquely combines ancient Stoic insights with techniques discovered by contemporary psychological research, such as anchoring and framing. The Stoic Challenge, then, is the ultimate guide to improving your quality of life through tactics developed by ancient Stoics, from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to Epictetus. Irvine teaches us to turn any challenge on its head. Plumbing the wisdom of one of the most popular and successful schools of thought from ancient Rome, philosopher William B.

Stoicism offers us an alternative approach. We often think that these responses are hardwired, but fortunately this is not the case.

Some people bounce back in response to setbacks others break. If you’re new to Stoicism start with ‘A Guide to the Good Life‘.Print The Stoic Challenge - A Philosopher's Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient The final chapter: ‘ Death: Your Exit Exam’ was worth the price of the book alone. A fair amount of the material here can be found in the first book but there are several interesting extensions and for me the core ideas of Stoicism are worth rereading any number of times. He continues to be a personable and friendly Stoic guide.

Every technique is actionable-Stoicism as a practical ‘philosophy of life’ after all.Īs with his previous book, Irvine fashions a modern interpretation of Stoicism that is easily conceptualised and understood. Irving presents the reader with a series of mental models, methods and exercises all designed to improve how we frame and deal with difficulty. The book is essentially resilience training. Facing obstacles, trials and tragedy is very much part of the human experience and the way we deal with these challenges in many ways defines us. ‘The Stoic challenge assumes a basic understanding of Stoicism and dispenses with most of the history, going straight to the heart of the matter: dealing with set backs. Just recently the author published a second book titled, ‘ The Stoic Challenge’. William Irvine’s ‘A Guide to the Good Life’ is widely regarded as the best introduction to Stoicism for modern readers - I read it recently and agree.

The Stoic Challenge by William B. Irvine