Jules Evans's Understanding of Greek philosophy’s Contribution to Improving Life

Greek Philosophy
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Introduction
Evans Jules is a proponent of phycology incorporating philosophy. Jules has a better understanding of life because philosophy rescued him from depression. In his book “philosophy for life and other dangerous situations”, Jules reveals how philosophy saved his life, and why we should apply it to our day-to-day lives. His book has twelve chapters each introducing a philosopher and his or her contribution to quality life today. Jules uses philosophy to inspire us to be happier, resilient and wise like the philosophers in his book. There is a connection between philosophy and psychology according to his explanation about cognitive therapy. Stoic philosophy inspired cognitive psychotherapy, which saved his life and continues to help people with psychological problems. Using ancient philosophy indicated in Jules work, I was able to overcome ridicule due to my obesity and being brought up by a single mother.
Stoicism is a very influential class of ancient philosophy that teaches self-control and self-discipline. According to this philosophy, one has to understand the rules of Nature and humanity in order for them to have a good life with its main premise being ‘Happiness’. Epictetus, Seneca the Younger, and Marcus Aurelius are the biggest proponents of stoicism; which they used to achieve a better life in the ancient Greek the three rote journals that serve as sources of stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who believed that events did not shape us only what we thought about those events. Aurelius is remembered for engaging in repetitive actions creating a habit that would help better life. He believed in training practicing and repeating until you had perfect behavior. Thus, this made you responsible for what happened in your life. Born a slave, Epictetus did not have control of what was happening around him thus he focused his energy on what he was only in control of. He believed that we were very poor at being happy. We let our experiences determine how happiness when we can learn to see good in them. Seneca, on the other hand, was a very influential advisor to a Roman emperor who is well known for his ethical writings on stoicism. Seneca saw anger as a problem and sort a way to solve the problem by anticipating it and preparing for its outcome.
The principal of stoicism teaches you to focus on what you can control and accept what you cannot control. “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens, some things are up to us and something is not up to us”. Stoicism also advises as to live in agreement with nature; these is because we have the ability to reason which separates us from beasts. Stoics teaches four aspects of virtues; wisdom, justice, courage, and self-discipline. You can only get a good life by applying these virtues. It also teaches us to practice misfortune o that it does not find us off guard. We should get out of our comfort zones and familiarize ourselves with our greatest fear. There are two techniques famous techniques used by the stoics to achieve a better life. They would find a way to stop themselves from worrying about the past and future focusing. “What is the point of dragging up sufferings that over, of being miserable now because you were miserable then?” They also had maxim techniques where they wrote and memorized phrases and proverbs that they would practice in order to stay in line. Finally, they believed that you could only find a good life and happiness by being ethical; doing the right thing at all times. This led to the rise of cosmopolitism were individuals had an ethical obligation to the community and to humanity.[Long, Antony Arthur. Epictetus: A Stoic and Guide to Life. Clarendon Press, 2002.] [Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Seneca: Moral and Political Essays. Cambridge University Press, 1995.]
Jules believes that psychology could not fully answer the question of what a good life is that is why it is dependent on philosophy. He encourages more philosophy for all fields so that we can be able to change our lives. Jules his over the year interviewed soldiers psychologists and many others in a bit to understand how they are incorporating philosophy in their lives. He believed that there is a very strong relationship between philosophy and our mentality and that we can ...