引言 生活之计划

    你想要从生活中得到什么？你的回答可能是这样的：我想要一位关爱我的配 偶、一份好工作、一所漂亮的房子，但是这些只是你生活需要的一部分。我的问 题是从最广阔的意义上提出来的。我问的不是你日常活动意义上的目标，而是生 活中的高远目标。换句话说，在你人生的所有追求中，什么对你来说是最有价值 的？

    在说明这样的目标时，很多人都会遇到麻烦。他们在生活中知道他们每分钟 需要什么，甚至每十年需要什么，但是他们从来没有停下来思考过生活中的高远 目标。他们没有高远目标，这也许是可以理解的。我们的文化并不鼓励人们思考 这样的问题。的确，生活中有太多让人分心的事情，以至于他们没有必要思考这 样的问题。但是，高远的目标是人生哲学的首要成分。这意味着，如果你缺少生 活中的高远目标，你就缺少条理清晰的人生哲学。

    为什么拥有哲学那么重要呢？这是因为没有哲学的话，生活就有误入歧途的 危险——就是说尽管在你活着时有各种各样的活动，享受过各种各样的乐趣，但 是末了你过的却是非常糟糕的生活。换句话说，就是当你躺倒在灵床上时，回望 过去，你却发现自己浪费了唯一的一次生活的机会。年华度尽你却并没有追求真 正有价值的东西，而是把生活挥霍掉了，因为你允许自己被生活中各种华而不实 的东西所俘获。

    假定你能够辨别出你生活的高远目标，也假定你能够解释为什么这个目标值得追求，即便如此，你也还是有误入歧途的危险。尤其是当你缺乏实现目标的有 效战略时，你很可能不能够实现你那高远的目标。因此，哲学生活的第二个组成 部分就是实现你生活中高远目标的战略。当你进行日常活动、最大限度地利用机 会实现你认为最终有价值的生活时，你需要做什么呢？你需要明晰的规则。

    如果要采取措施避免浪费财富，我们可以很容易找到专家来帮助我们。翻翻 电话号码簿，我们就能找到许多注册理财师的电话号码。这些人能够帮我们弄清 我们的财政目标：比如，我们应该存多少钱，以备退休后使用。帮我们弄清楚这 些目标之后，他们就能就如何实现它们提出建议。

    ……

    我是带着下面的问题来写作本书的：假使古代斯多葛主义者要承担起一项任 务，为21世纪的人们写一部指南——一本告诉我们怎样才能拥有良好的生活的书——那么这本书将是什么样子呢？接下来的内容就是我对这个问题的解答。

Introduction

A Plan for Living

WHAT DO YOU WANT Out of life? You might answer this question by saying that you want a caring spouse, a good job, and a nice house, but these are really just some of the things you want in life. In asking what you want out of life, I am asking the question in its broadest sense. I am asking not for the goals you form as you go about your daily activities but for your grand goal in living. In other words, of the things in life you might pursue, which is the thing you believe to be most valuable?

  Many people will have trouble naming this goal. They know what they want minute by minute or even decade by decade during their life, but they have never paused to consider their grand goal in living. It is perhaps understandable that they haven’t. Our culture doesn’t encourage people to think about such things; indeed, it provides them with an endless stream of distractions so they won’t ever have to. But a grand goal in living is the first component of a philosophy of life.

  This means that if you lack a grand goal in living, you lack a coherent philosophy of life.  Why is it important to have such a philosophy? Because without one, there is a danger that you will mislive—that despite all your activity, despite all the pleasant diversions you might have enjoyed while alive, you will end up living a bad life.  There is, in other words, a danger that when you are on your deathbed, you will look back and realize that you wasted your one chance at living. Instead of spending your life pursuing something genuinely valuable, you squandered it because you allowed yourself to be distracted by the various baubles life has to offer.

  Suppose you can identify your grand goal in living. Suppose, too, that you can explain why this goal is worth attaining. Even then, there is a danger that you will mislive. In particular, if you lack an effective strategy for attaining your goal, it is unlikely that you will attain it. Thus, the second component of a philosophy of life is a strategy for attaining your grand goal in living.  This strategy will specify what you must do, as you go about your daily activities, to maximize your chances of gaining the thing in life that you take to be ultimately valuable.

IF WE WANT......

  I wrote this book with the following question in mind: If the ancient Stoics had taken it upon themselves to write a guidebook for twenty-first-century individuals—a book that would tell us how to have a good life—what might that book have looked like? The pages that follow are my answer to this question.