{"id":14620,"date":"2023-05-05T14:50:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T18:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/?p=14620"},"modified":"2023-05-05T14:50:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T18:50:02","slug":"this-is-a-great-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/this-is-a-great-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is A Great Pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of the four Stoic virtues, Marcus Aurelius<\/a> said justice was the most important. To him, it was \u201cthe source of all the other virtues.\u201d After all, how impressive are courage<\/a> or discipline<\/a> if they are only used to serve self-interest? What good is wisdom if not put to use for the whole world?<\/p>\n

Over and over and over, the Stoics talk about community, partnership, fellowship, neighborliness, and our relation to a larger whole (if you remember, one of Marcus\u2019s epithets was \u201ccooperative.\u201d) It\u2019s that belief\u2014the mutual interdependence among everything in the universe, that we are all one\u2014that inspired our sympatheia coin<\/a>. It\u2019s also what inspired us back in December to ask you all to contribute to our effort through GiveDirectly to raise money for families in poverty. Thanks to the generosity of the Daily Stoic and Daily Dad<\/a> communities, we raised $32,316 for families living in the Giterama village in Rwanda. GiveDirectly\u2019s field team provided each family with an $850 cash transfer\u2014the equivalent of a YEAR\u2019S worth of income for people used to surviving on less than $2 per day.<\/p>\n

The GiveDirectly Field team shot this video featuring Gitarama residents describing the direct impact our donations have had on their lives and community.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children used to go to school with no shoes,\u201d one of the residents says. \u201cThey only cost $1, but we couldn\u2019t afford them. When I now meet someone on the streets, they tell me how their lives have completely changed. It is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One resident \u201cdidn\u2019t even have a safe place to stand when it rained,\u201d so with the money, they bought materials to repair their home. Another woman explained that with the money we donated, she bought a sewing machine and tailoring lessons. For the first time, her children got new clothes and shoes.<\/p>\n

There is a phenomenon called the \u201chelper\u2019s high\u201d\u2014it has been found<\/a> that when you give to others, your brain\u2019s pleasure and reward centers light up, as if you were the recipient of the good deed\u2014not the giver. It is hard to watch the video without feeling that helper\u2019s high\u2014something we Stoics live for, as Seneca said. \u201cWe Stoics,\u201d he said, \u201ctake pleasure in bestowing benefits, even though they cost us labor, provided that they lighten the labors of others.\u201d Marcus said that we don\u2019t need to ask for the third thing in life\u2013being thanked or recognized for good deeds, because doing them was pleasure enough.<\/p>\n

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the GiveDirectly fundraiser! Marcus said the fruit of this life were those acts, the kind we do for the common good: being unselfish, caring for your fellow humans, embracing your good fortune only as a means to lighten the difficulties for those less fortunate. Marcus would be proud.<\/p>\n

To see more details on our fundraising results, or to donate to families in need, visit givedirectly.org\/stoic<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the four Stoic virtues, Marcus Aurelius said justice was the most important. To him, it was \u201cthe source of all the other virtues.\u201d After all, how impressive are courage or discipline if they are only used to serve self-interest? What good is wisdom if not put to use for the whole world? Over and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Is A Great Pleasure<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/this-is-a-great-pleasure\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Is A Great Pleasure\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Of the four Stoic virtues, Marcus Aurelius said justice was the most important. To him, it was \u201cthe source of all the other virtues.\u201d After all, how impressive are courage or discipline if they are only used to serve self-interest? 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