My friends can buy the little funny Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” I wrote with my wife as a paperback either form Amazon or directly from my own eStore, also powered by Amazon through CreateSpace.

I encourage my friends to buy from my eStore, as the royalties paid by Amazon are less than one dollar per sold copy and will not contribute substantially toward paying my huge hospital bills.

I have also reminded my friends that life is too short to spend any minute of it worrying or stressing out ourselves and others and that stress can be deadly. (If they want to have the facts, they can read my stress report – downloadable for free here.)

The one question most people stress out over every year in December is “What presents to make whom?” Those of my friends who have not made a decision yet should seriously consider buying my little funny Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” as it it is the ideal present they can give anybody you love and care for, including their precious selves.

If they are on a lower budget this year, they can still get the downloadable eBook version for half of the price of the paperback here

In addition, they can still download the first chapter for free here

The most precious present I received came from my oncologist: as per last medical checkup: I am still cancer-FREE, no recurrence so far.

I gave a talk on Epicurus’s life, teachings, and influence in August this year in Madison, Wisconsin. The professional young man who made the video recording lost most of it. My son edited the footage I recorded myself from a silly angle and he uploaded the first two parts – Epicurus’s life and teachings –  to his ownYouTube channel as it is 34 minutes long and I cannot upload to my own channel anything longer than 15 minutes.

As for the third part, Epicurus’s influence, I still have the slides and the sound recording and I plan to make more slides and record a presentation at home.

My recommendation to my friends was this year to enjoy every single day of their remaining lives in leisurely stress-FREEDOM, quoting Epicurus: “We have been born once and cannot be born a second time; for all eternity we shall no longer exist. But you, although you are not in control of tomorrow, are postponing your happiness. Life is wasted by delaying, and each one of us dies without enjoying leisure.”

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SLAVERY (6) >> LET’S PUT OUR FEARS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Fear of poverty

We often joke about being poor, making tongue-in-cheek statements about being a starving artist or a debt-laden student or professional who dresses up getting fired by saying “I’m exploring my options.” This kind of “poor” is relative; we’re comparing ourselves to others who are otherwise just like us.

The real poverty we fear is the state of having unmet basic needs, including a lack of decent housing, adequate nutrition, protection from cold, and access to health care and education; in short, the lower level needs described in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which we’ll delve into in the Needs segment. Unfortunately, having unsatisfied basic needs leads to a lack of dignity, self-esteem and respect. We need only to pay attention to news stories of suicides and homelessness among those who have been “down-sized,” sacked, or otherwise made jobless to recognize the truth in that statement.

Being unemployed on a long-term basis, becoming seriously ill and unable to work, losing one’s retirement benefits, enduring a family catastrophe, and seeing one’s life’s dream go up in smoke are certainly justifications for reasonable fear. The key is to turn the fear into action rather than letting it paralyze us. If you are already in a critical situation, find out what your options are regarding government aid; spruce up your resume, take advantage of retraining programs, employment counseling, and job fairs; contact your creditors to make payment arrangements; determine what types of loans, if any are available to you; and learn about the different options available for those on the verge of bankruptcy. It’s harder to feel like a victim if you are taking steps regularly.

It’s possible to cushion the blow of losing one’s income by making a plan and sticking to it: Set priorities, then list basic needs separately from non-essential needs and wants; and set aside three months’ wages or salary for emergencies

as quickly as possible (this means before covering those non-essential needs and wants you’ve listed, including magazine subscriptions, premium cable services, membership dues, restaurant dining, travel, designer clothing, new cars and daily lattes).

During Epicurus’s time, his friendship circles practiced living in poverty occasionally in order to remove the fear of it. We could practice going without

bountiful meals — for example, eating cheese sandwiches instead of beef or pork

— watching TV, driving cars and buying new clothes, books, video games and CDs. Chances are excellent that we would not only survive such an exercise, but may even find something to like about it!

Studies show that in general, people move in and out of poverty. If we understand that we may have the power to avoid it and the power to take action in the event poverty is on the horizon, fear is a useless commodity. Make that plan, follow it religiously, and

sleep well.

I was diagnosed with stage IIIA and therefore my statistical chances to survive the next 5 years are 52%.  In plain terms: head or tails.  Or, in even plainer terms: I will either survive the next 5 years, or not.

Had I not been diagnosed with this cancer, my life expectancy could be, depending where I lived

Germany          78.95

United States    78.00

Hungary           72.92

Romania           71.91

-         theoretically. Purely theoretically I could have been born in Africa with a life expectancy of

Angola             37.63

Swaziland         32.23

Some of my friends asked me about the impact of these statistics on my conduct of life. The fact is, I don’t think in terms of theoretical probabilities as expressed by statistics. These numbers are absolutely irrelevant to my personal life.

As practicing Epicurean I focus on what is under my control or influence and try to give and take as many pleasurable minutes as possible every single day. Reading and speculating about statistics would be a waste of precious moments I can use in much more pleasurable way, like for instance playing euchre or UNO with my family, walking, cooking, sipping wine and coffee, reading and listening to music.

This chain reaction reminded me of the side effects of the Epicurean conduct of life: health, contentment, happiness and self-sufficiency. And, to quote Epicurus: “Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency”.

Bertrand Russell shows deep understanding of Epicuranism and Epicurus as a philosopher in his “History of Western Philosophy”.

Yet in “The Conquest of Happiness” – a wonderful litlle book of Epicurean inspiration – he ignores Epicurus almost totally. (He does NOT disparage him, though, as Epicurus did Nausiphanes.)

Does anybody have a clue why the basically Epicurean Russell ignored Epicurus in this work?

This is the question I have just ported on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14290&uid=86711477873#!/topic.php?uid=86711477873&topic=14290

My hypothesis is that people are born as Epicureans but then they are re-educated. So we are all of us unwittingly Epicureans – basically.

My aunt sent us from Melbourne a clock that has the shape of Australia. My daughter was very happy because she could tell me the time without having to refer to boring digits: “it’s long Darwin short Sydney”

I must admit that it took me some time (and a walk to the map) until I grasped the deeper meaning of this announcement. (Yes, it was 5 p.m.)

As I wanted to compose an Epicurean wedding reading I have come across a site with very good secular humanist “raw material”:

http://www.interfaithofficiants.com/DesignYourOwnCeremonyPages/DesignYourOwnCeremonySampleCivilHumanistSecularService.html

• • pain
  • a lack of control over environmental circumstances, such as food, housing, health, freedom
  • social issues such as social defeat, relationship conflict, deception, break-ups
  • major events such as birth, death, marriage, and divorce
  • life experiences such as poverty, unemployment, exams, deadlines

Why are these very common issues and experiences perceived by many as threats? If they are so common, why are we not appropriately prepared for them? Is our failure to cope with the most common issues not a result of the malfunction of those whose responsibility it is to prepare us for life? Have our parents, teachers, educators and counselors all failed us?

Epicurus, the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy and happiness-boosting life conduct, suffered all his life from a bladder pain that finally killed him. This fact, however, did not interfere with his pursuit of happiness, even though they had no pain relief medicines in 271 BCE.

So what was Epicurus’s secret?  His “four-part cure,” in Greek “tetrapharmakos,” can give us a hint:

Don’t fear the gods,
Don’t worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure

But his anti-stress medicine could not be swallowed at once with a glass of water. His followers had to chew and digest it over many years in their communal educative life-schools. The effort must have been worthwhile since the Epicurean circles of friends flourished over 800 years from 300 BCE till 500 CE.

So how was Epicurus’s stress-prevention program practiced?

The Epicureans did not give up their possessions as the Pythagoreans did, since that would have prevented them from generously sharing their resources with each other. They did not rebel against the state and its institutions, as the Cynics did, since they relied on the state to protect them in exchange for performing their duties as citizens. (Epicurus himself went to Athens for his two-year term of military service at the age of 18.) They did not plot against rulers or attempt revolutions, as the Platonists did, since they believed that the exercise of political power beyond the bounds of their own self-administrative communes endangered their peace of mind, necessary for a good life in freedom and happiness. For the same reason they did not participate in state affairs, as the Stoics did. They kept a low profile according to one of their principles: “lathe biosas,” in English,” live unobtrusively” or “unnoticed.”

This is what they did: The happiness-seekers lived together in communities where they could individually and collectively promote each others’ progress on their pathways from pain to pleasure. They studied intensively Epicurus’s therapeutical writings and memorized the most important precepts so they had them ready at hand the moment the specific philosophical-psychological pill was needed. They gave each other feedback on their progress and those who were more advanced helped the others in the way modern life-coaches and trainers do through lectures, discussions, conversations, and practical activities.

How  can an Epicurean lifestyle prevent each of life’s main “stressors”? Through the education and continuous practice of stress-busting, happiness-boosting attitudes towards all the issues related to pain, fear, frustration experienced today as social defeat, relationship conflict, deception, break-ups, births, deaths, divorce, poverty, unemployment, exams, and deadlines.

I will take up these issues individually and describe how Epicureans dealt with them over eight centuries and how we can deal with them today.