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How to Live According to Nature
You can’t get away from nature.
The ancient pagan philosophy of Stoicism teaches that a good life comes from acting in harmony with nature. If you understand how the world works and apply that insight to your conduct, you won’t take setbacks to heart. Neither will success distort your thinking and throw you off-kilter. Living according to nature creates a state of flourishing, where other people and chance events don’t govern your well-being. You begin to exercise your inherent human capabilities to the fullest — you bloom into the person of excellence that you’re meant to be.
What the Stoics didn’t emphasize was that no one, even the most immoral and unbalanced person, ever actually fails to live according to nature. Natural law is inescapable. There’s nothing outside of it. There is no choice you can make that places you beyond nature’s reach, because nature isn’t something you choose. Instead, it’s about which effects follow from your decisions — whatever those decisions happen to be.
Is it human nature to be honest, for instance? Well, a scrupulously truthful person and a habitual liar are both acting naturally — that is, within the range of what humans have the power to do. When the honest person finds that their conscience doesn’t bother them and that their friends consider them trustworthy, that’s the natural result of their…