William Irvine Quote on Negative Visualization: The Gratitude Exercise

Quote

"Negative visualization is the most valuable of all Stoic exercises: by contemplating the loss of what we have, we are reminded of the importance of enjoying it while we have it — and the gratitude is the joy." — William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life (2009)

Author

William B. Irvine is an American philosopher, a professor at Wright State University, and the author of A Guide to the Good Life (2009), one of the founding texts of the modern Stoic revival.

Source

The quotation is the central recommendation of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Context

The practice of negative visualization is the ancient Stoic exercise of the premeditation of evils — the deliberate imagination of the loss of what we value, recommended by Seneca and practiced by Marcus Aurelius. Irvine recovered the exercise for the modern reader and made it the centerpiece of the modern practice: the exercise that produces the gratitude, because the person who has imagined losing what they have is the person who appreciates what they have.

Meaning

The quotation states the modern Stoic account of negative visualization with complete clarity. "Negative visualization is the most valuable of all Stoic exercises" — the evaluation: the exercise is the most valuable, because it produces the two fruits of the practice — the gratitude and the preparation. "By contemplating the loss of what we have" — the method: the contemplation of the loss — the health, the wealth, the loved ones, the life — is the deliberate exercise. "We are reminded of the importance of enjoying it while we have it" — the first fruit: the gratitude — the appreciation of the present that the taken-for-granted destroys. "The gratitude is the joy" — the second fruit: the joy — the delight in the present that the gratitude produces. The quotation is the modern form of the ancient practice of negative visualization, and it grounds the Stoic wisdom tradition's account of the gratitude in the language of the modern world.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the modern practice of negative visualization and the Stoic account of gratitude. Its recommendation of the exercise connects to the ancient practice of the premeditation of evils and to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the appreciation. The recommendation is among the most influential of the modern Stoic literature.