Plutarch, the brilliant moral biographer, wasn’t exactly a fan of the Stoics. He wrote a number of critical essays about Stoicism (ironically, these essays aren’t very good) and certainly didn’t consider himself one. But there was one area where his beliefs clearly overlapped with say a Marcus Aurelius or an Epictetus and that was about the transformative role of philosophy on […]
There is a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: It works if you work it. By that they mean that there is nothing magical about the information in the program, nothing that will magically cure you just by hearing it. But if you do the work, if you turn the words into practices, you can make progress. That means doing the […]
For more than 2,000 years, wise men and women have relied on an ancient philosophy known as Stoicism to guide them through their days. It’s been a tool for the ordinary and the elite alike — from slaves to emperors — as they sought wisdom, strength, and the “good life.” Today, Stoicism is popular with football coaches the Seattle […]
Memento Mori — (Latin: remember you will die)–is the ancient practice of reflection on our mortality that goes back to Socrates, who said that the proper practice of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” In his Meditations—essentially his own private journal—Marcus Aurelius wrote that “You could leave life right now. Let that […]
The connection between politics and Stoicism is as old as the philosophy itself. Stoics were senators, soldiers and power brokers two thousand years ago just as they are today. Then, as is now, Stoics on all sides of the aisle tried to make the world a better place. And this is why we were excited […]
This is a guest post by Alex J. Hughes who is a writer and software product manager based in Nashville, TN. Join his reading list for 5+ monthly book recommendations–with notes so you can start to dig in–and his latest articles. What distinguishes the greats is the will to keep going when others start dropping off and to […]
It was today in 1520 that the explorer Ferdinand Magellan crossed from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean, the first European explorer to ever do so, and inching his way closer to a complete circumnavigation of the globe. One cannot study Magellan and not be impressed by his feats of Stoic discipline and self-control. […]
It’s the man stepping outside to take a walk after a fight with his wife. It’s a mother worrying about her child, the one that seems to always be in trouble. It’s the merchant stressed to the point of explosion, where will the money come from? How will I keep going? It’s the two siblings […]
We get to where we were going and walk into the lobby and check our watch. It says we’re a few minutes early, so we reach into our pocket to grab our phones to kill a few minutes. Is this act not the expression of so much of what’s wrong with modern life? The entitlement. […]