Sometime during the 300s BCE, the Greek philosopher Epicurus wrote in a letter to a friend: 

“It is right then for a man to consider the things which produce happiness, since, if happiness is present, we have everything, and when it is absent, we do everything with a view to possess it.” ¹ 

It’s probably no coincidence that Epicurus had happiness on the brain. The times he lived in were anything but. Alexander the Great had mysteriously died just a few years earlier, at the height of his powers and just 32 years old.  His short-lived empire had fractured and civil war broke out as his four generals jockeyed for control. Long gone were the city-states and the golden age of Athens. It was an age of transition and uncertainty.

The people of the time (Epicurus included) responded by doing what most sensitive people tend to do in such times: they looked for answers. On their mind was the burning question, if you’ll allow me to use modern verbiage: “How do we find true happiness and make sense of reality so that we don’t curl up into a ball of despair?” (And honestly, this is the same question that keeps me writing this blog).

New schools of thought sprang up in response, jostling to find the best answers. Three of these new philosophies in particular became influential and would endure in different forms over the coming centuries: the Stoics, Epicureans, and Pyrrhonist skeptics.

Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Pyrrhonism each offers relevant wisdom for our own uncertain times, sometimes surprisingly so. While these three schools of thought were rivals who debated each other, I personally think each of them has a valid argument for the good life and taken together, they make up a more complete blueprint for living. They also have important things in common; for example, each challenges our Western culture’s obsession with achievement, status, consumption, recognition, vindication, and overall busyness. 

A disclaimer before I go further: these three schools of thought, along with any other ancient philosophical tradition, are extremely complex and systematic, with many scholars rightfully bemoaning laypeople who quote them out of context or over-generalize. What I’m trying to do here is not to offer a tidy summary, but rather to focus on the aspects of each that I find most helpful and interesting. I’m well aware of the human susceptibility (that includes me) to miss many of the nuances of a certain tradition or thought system, especially when addressing no fewer than three of them in a single essay(!).

Think of this essay as a beginning point, rather than an ending point, for examining these three worldviews. They could each easily take an entire series of essays for me to write. Maybe one day they will.

The Stoic view: Happiness is found in virtue

Stoicism has its roots in the philosopher Zeno, but it’s been made famous by household names like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. It’s influenced many a thinker over the years, from Michel de Montaigne to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it’s enjoying a new life today thanks to revivalists like Ryan Holiday (if you’re a philosophy enthusiast, you’re no doubt already well aware of this). Whether Stoicism is in the early, middle, or late stage of trending is impossible for me to say. But I can certainly understand why it’s trending.

One of the most essential features of Stoicism is the belief that we must accept the facts of reality (such as death and uncertainty) and do our best to cultivate tranquility and self-control so that we can be happy despite whatever comes our way. The one thing we can control is luckily the thing that matters most: our moral character and our decision to live in accordance with reason. Reduced to one word, virtue (arete). As Seneca says: “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”

This is one of those truths that sounds obvious but is supremely difficult to follow, probably even more so in today’s hustle-bustle world. How are we supposed to not be anxious about the future when we’re faced with so many micro-decisions every day? How do we stay tranquil when we’re bombarded by 24/7 news on our smartphones? How do we deal with gaslighty bosses and rude strangers and gossipmongers? How do we handle the loss of our jobs, health, or worst of all, the lives of our loved ones (especially when premature death is far less common, visible and expected today than it was in ancient times)?

For all of these, the Stoics point us to the power we have to direct our own thoughts. Long before the term “internal locus of control” was coined, Epictetus wrote, “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”  

The Stoics understood that this was not an overnight process. The emperor Marcus Aurelius is remembered not for writing public speeches, but for keeping a notebook intended only for himself to read. It was there he recorded meditative reminders about death, hardship, human nature, and other eternal principles; for him, happiness was an interior affair. “The happiness of your life,” he famously writes, “depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ²

Stoicism offers much to comfort, inspire, and answer the existential questions we wrestle with. The Stoics also have an advantage in that the writings of some of their biggest contributors – Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius – have survived intact to this day. Head to your nearest bookstore and you are likely to find a copy of Aurelius’s Meditations, or Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. This is sadly not the case with Epicureanism or Pyrrhonism, which rely much more on secondary accounts to explain their views.

But while Stoicism can more or less stand on its own, Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism offer both vital perspectives, in my opinion, that Stoicism lacks.

The Epicurean view: Happiness is living a simple life

Epicureanism is possibly the most misunderstood of the Greek philosophical traditions.

The word itself tends to conjure up images of hedonists lounging around on dining couches, eating grapes and drinking out of goblets, and it doesn’t help that some of Epicurus’s contemporaries as well as later thinkers spread misinformation, so to speak, about Epicureanism (Epictetus, the famous Stoic instructor, did not like Epicurus, to put it mildly!).

What Epicurus actually taught his followers is that the happiest life consists of pursuing pleasure, avoiding unecessary pain, and keeping our desires as simple as possible.  This kind of pleasure doesn’t mean orgies, or buying a brand-new Mercedes-Benz every year; in fact, the more complicated our pleasures are, the more likely they are to incur pain.

For Epicureans, pleasure is a deep and wholesome concept. Spending time with good friends and pursuing intellectual growth, for example, are some of the best kinds of pleasure in existence. ³ Epicureanism’s ultimate solution to the problem of how to be happy is arguably not even in pleasure per se, but in living a simple life whittled down to only the things that are most meaningful and fulfilling (pleasure included).

“Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their existence to vain opinions.”

“Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their existence to vain opinions,” Epicurus argues. For example, drinking water when you’re dehydrated is both natural and necessary, eating a nice farm-to-table meal isn’t necessary but it’s a natural thing to enjoy, and erecting an expensive statue for a self-serving, wealthy donor is neither necessary nor natural, but rooted in vanity. 

My favorite thing about Epicureanism is its focus on modesty, minimalism, and prudence. There are plenty of “vain opinions” in the world today about what we need to live well; Epicureanism gives us a roadmap for not making our lives more complicated than they need to be.

The Pyrrhonist view: Happiness is avoiding dogma 

Pyrrhonism is arguably the most overlooked of the three schools of thought, and I hope this changes. Its core teaching that I’ve found extremely useful in my own life is that of “suspending judgement” wherever we can, even when it comes to things we might otherwise take for granted as true.

“Skepticism [in reference to Pyrrhonism],” writes Sextus Empiricus, “is an ability to set out oppositions among things which appear and are thought of in any way at all, an ability by which…we come first to suspension of judgement and afterwards to tranquility.” In other words, an ability to argue from any direction and not blindly hold a particular set of beliefs. ⁴

Pyrrho of Elis, like Epicurus, was misunderstood by many of his contemporaries and also many who came later. Some of them caricaturized his skepticism, claiming that he often walked near cliff edges and oncoming wagons because he didn’t trust his own senses. ⁵ In reality, Pyrrho was sensible, well-liked and well-respected. He argued not that we should question automatic activities, like eating, drinking, and avoiding cliffsides — but rather that we should question the things that we lack universal agreement on, including our values and social norms. Because of the limitations of the human mind, we’re not in a position to make definitive claims about absolute truth (dogma).

In a world that feels increasingly anxious and defensive, there is something about Pyrrhonism I find very liberating. Pyrrho himself argued that when we suspend our beliefs, tranquility will follow automatically — just as our shadow follows wherever we go. It’s not an intuitive idea, but I’ve found that whenever I do suspend judgement about things that I feel are important, I feel a huge weight lift from my entire being. I continue to make choices and stick to my values but in the back of my mind there is always the question, “What if I’m wrong?” That question makes all the difference between living intentionally and living defensively.

Pyrrhonism’s skepticism, I’ve learned, offers us the strange but wonderful comfort of not having to understand, let alone be right about everything.

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You may find that between Stoicism, Pyrrhonism, or Epicureanism you are drawn to one in particular. Certainly, each emphasizes different aspects of happiness; each one also appeals to a different but related human need: the need for good judgment, for well-being, and for the freedom to be uncertain. In my view, Stoicism, Pyrrhonism, and Epicureanism aren’t so much opposed to each other as they are focused on different aspects of how to be happy and stay sane in a very frustrating world.

For that reason, I will continue to revisit and study all of them for a long time to come.

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Read Next: Eudaimonia: A Better Word For Happiness →

1. Diogenes Laërtius. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by C. D. Yonge, Project Gutenberg, 16 June 2018, see this link for Epicurus’s letter to Menoeceus.
2. Aurelius, Marcus, and Martin Hammond. “Meditations.” Penguin Books, April 27, 2006.
3. As Nietzsche puts it in Human, All Too Human: “A little garden, figs, little cheeses, and in addition three or four good friends — these were the sensual pleasures of Epicurus.”
4. From Outlines of Scepticism, by Sextus Empiricus (Cambridge University Press).
5. Diogenes Laërtius. The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by C. D. Yonge, Project Gutenberg, 16 June 2018, see this link for the life of Pyrrho