Lessons from the ancient philosophers to help improve our lives today

We are meant to have desires and should worry less, said Aristotle, while Epicurus cautioned that most of the stuff we think we want won ’t make us happyFour hours spent wandering the aisles of Ikea for nothing. My boyfriend and I had long since stopped talking. I was ready to slap the next person who uttered a Swedish word. As I pushed my heaving cart into another room full of boxes I took a deep breath and fought the urge to cry. Thank God for philosophy, I thought to myself.I first got interested in philosophy as a teenager. It was on the curriculum at my high school in Paris, but its image was pretty crusty – philosophers were greybeards who wrote convoluted sentences and looked as if they might need a good wash, right? But when I was 16, a teacher gave me a copy of Wittgenstein’sTractatus Logico-Philosophicus and I was struck by one phrase: “That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.”Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Life and style Psychology Science Health & wellbeing Source Type: news