Why I got interested in Epicurean Philosophy.

Background

Like most people, I lived my first 22 or so years in a haze, I had a typical teenage breakup when I was 18 or so and then started going out, drinking very heavily.

Eventually I became withered with this lifestyle, the pleasure and excitement I once felt began to dissipate into just dissatisfaction and boredom, although I didn't know at the time there is a name for this phenomenon called the "hedonic treadmill" it is defined as:

"The observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relative stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events in their lives"

 Basically it is a bounce back mechanism in humans, when we suffer a major loss we can recover and when we gain a major happy mental state (e.g. overjoyed, ecstatic, ecstasy etc... not lower level states such as normal joy, contentment,) we can return to a functional state. 

Stoicism

I went look for answers on how to be happy. I found the book "A Guide to the Good life: Stoic Joy" by William Irvine, I instantly bought in. It had so many great ideas, "it's impossible to live in tranquility without living virtuously and vice-versa" (sound familiar?)

I wanted to find out more about this school of philosophy and I went on to  read the entire curriculum of Stoicism (Seneca, Aurelius, Epictetus and Rufus, the main primary sources of Stoicism left) and the concept of "virtue" stuck out to me, my first impression was "but how do you know a virtue is a good thing?"

Realization about virtue

I practiced Stoicism religiously and to be honest I was very happy and lived a pleasurable life but I didn't call it that at the time. Anyway I was practicing it for awhile and considering all the concepts and they all made sense, except virtue I asked myself  "Why am I being virtuously" and the answer was, despite any philosophical argument I heard, was that it made me feel good. The pleasure of being "good" was the only reason I bothered.

I realized that I liked Irvine's book so much because it was essentially about that, using Stoic techniques and virtue to feel good, (tranquility) I asked around for reasons for "virtue for it's own sake" but I got no good answers, only replies such as "because of self sufficiency, because if you believe humans are rational-social creatures you must believe in virtue".

So either the view required me to believe that self-sufficiency (which is a consequence of virtue, thinking back and therefore not "virtue for it's own sake") or believe that humans are rational-social creatures and also believe virtue is our highest state. 

Going to Epicurus

Anyway I soon found Epicurean philosophy and began reading the concepts and more importantly listening to the modern "experts" such as Cassius, Hiram, Alex etc... and thus far I am living a much more fulfilled life with pleasure as my guide and goal and everything else as a tool to pleasure.

It just made more sense, instead of virtue being an end it became a means to an end. I learned to evaluate things in my life based on the happiness they provide me. It made me realize what was really important in my life and cherish it more (specifically my friends)