Rules for Livng the Good Life

Ten Golden Rules for Living the Good Life

  
“1. Examine life, engage life with vengeance; always search for new pleasures and new destines to reach with your mind.
 2.  Worry only about the things that are in your control, the things that can be influenced and changed by your actions, not about the things that are beyond your capacity to direct or alter. 
 3.  Treasure Friendship, the reciprocal attachment that fills the need for affiliation. Friendship cannot be acquired in the market place, but must be nurtured and treasured in relations imbued with trust and amity. 
 4.  Experience True Pleasure. Avoid shallow and transient pleasures. Keep your life simple. Seek calming pleasures that contribute to peace of mind. True pleasure is disciplined and restrained. 
 5.  Master Yourself. Resist any external force that might delimit thought and action; stop deceiving yourself, believing only what is personally useful and convenient; complete liberty necessitates a struggle within, a battle to subdue negative psychological and spiritual forces that preclude a healthy existence; self mastery requires ruthless cador. 
 6.  Avoid Excess. Live life in harmony and balance. Avoid excesses. Even good things, pursued or attained without moderation, can become a source of misery and suffering. 
 7.  Be a Responsible Human Being. Approach yourself with honesty and thoroughness; maintain a kind of spiritual hygiene; stop the blame-shifting for your errors and shortcomings. 
 8.  Don’t Be a Prosperous Fool. Prosperity by itself, is not a cure-all against an ill-led life, and may be a source of dangerous foolishness. Money is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the good life, for happiness and wisdom. 
 9.  Don’t Do Evil to Others. Evildoing is a dangerous habit, a kind of reflex too quickly resorted to and too easily justified that has a lasting and damaging effect upon the quest for the good life. Harming others claims two victims—the receiver of the harm, and the victimizer, the one who does harm. 
 10.  Kindness towards others tends to be rewarded. Kindness to others is a good habit that supports and reinforces the quest for the good life. Helping others bestows a sense of satisfaction that has two beneficiaries—the beneficiary, the receiver of the help, and the benefactor, the one who provides the help.” 
-   By M.A. Soupious and Panos Mourdoukoutas
    The Ten Golden Rules: Ancient Wisdom from the Greek Philosophers on Living the Good Life, 2009


Lifestyle Advice from Wise Persons
The Good Life

Ten Basic Epicurean Values

1)  Prudence
2)  Self-management
3)  Self-sufficiency
4)  Serenity
5)  Simplicity
6)  Friendliness
7)  Honesty
8)  Generosity
9)  Cheerfulness
10)  Gentleness

Epicurus, 341-270 BCE