I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Harper Books) for promotional purposes.

I was a philosophy major in college so naturally I was excited to read this.

This was a very practical guide on stoicism and how to incorporate it into your everyday life. The author does a good job breaking down the philosophy of stoics in an easy to follow way, while also including quotes from the stoics themselves. The chapters are well organized with subsections discussing the key ideas. I found a lot of the advice to be helpful, especially the control test because I often get frustrated over things I cannot control.

The author also pulls from personal experiences and uses them to illustrate stoic thinking. I know that some reviewers didn’t like the anecdotes, but I didn’t mind them. When discussing philosophy it’s always helpful to ground the ideas into something concrete like real life experiences.

My one critique is that the book does get repetitive at times. A lot of the same ideas get reiterated in multiple chapters. When I learned about stoicism in my ancient philosophy class it was only briefly discussed because there wasn’t as much substance to it compared to other ancient teachings.

Overall, if you’re interested or even just curious about stoicism, consider reading this! ( )

(back in April) I began reading a library copy of this book... and liked it so much I went and bought my own copy of it.
***
(Now in December)
I've been meaning to write about this book for a while. Reading Kaggsy's EOY post referencing stoicism was the catalyst for me to finish off the last couple of chapters and do it.

And while I would be the last person to make suggestions about New Year's Resolutions because *chuckle* I've never ever kept any of mine and have now given up entirely, it does seem to me that our increasingly angry, entitled, time-wasting world could do with taking up some of the ideas in this book...

I rarely read self-help books, but Brigid Delaney Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in chaotic times, interested me because I like two schools of philosophical thought: one is utilitarianism, exemplified by Peter Singer's practical ethics which have actually influenced my behaviour (see the books I've read here); and the other is stoicism, which I discovered at university when I read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180 AD). Meditations lives by my bedside, where often just the sight of it reminds me of its principles, enough to restore a calm frame of mind.

These basic principles are listed in the Introduction:

1. Acknowledge that you can't control much of what goes on in your life.


2. See that your emotions are the product of how you think about the world.


3. Accept that bad things are bound to happen to you from time to time, just as they do to everyone else.


4. See yourself as part of a larger whole, not an isolated individual; part of the human race, part of nature.


5. Think of everything you have as not your own, but simply on loan, that one day will be taken back. (p.5)

Since your own character is one of the few things you can control, there are four virtues to cultivate:

1. courage


2. self-control


3. wisdom, and


4. justice.

Anyone can (try to) cultivate these virtues, regardless of their circumstances. The pursuit of good character in ancient times excluded no one: man, woman, slave, freeperson, black, white. They believed that it was human nature, achievable with practice and commitment.

Delaney is not a philosopher, she's a lawyer-turned-journalist but she has been much more serious about stoicism that I have ever tried to be. She wrote this book to share the Stoicism learning journey that she undertook with a friend called Andrew. For her, it turned out to be very helpful during the pandemic. As she says, we all know people who went to pieces during the lockdowns, and yet some of us thrived. She had practised the techniques of Stoicism so that much of it was second nature to her. I just bumbled my way through...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/31/reasons-not-to-worry-how-to-be-stoic-in-chao... ( )