In 1993, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the then-Archbishop of Chicago, was accused of having molested a young man in Philadelphia some two decades earlier. Unfortunately, this is an old story with an all-too familiar ending: A Catholic priest who abused his trust and authority to take advantage of a vulnerable young person. Right? And of course […]
The secret from Marcus Aurelius for when we get flak or insults or judgement from other people? He said we should look inside their soul. “Get inside him,” Marcus wrote. “Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him.” His point was that too often we blindly “accept” […]
The writer Walker Percy, one of the so-called Southern Stoics, would ask and answer that question. “Jealousy,” he said, “is an alteration in the very shape of time itself. Time loses its structure. Time stretches out.” Because we become so consumed, we lose the ability to think of anything else. Our chest tightens and every other track […]
In early 2014, an employee of the multi-billion dollar medical company Theranos began to worry that the company may be engaged in fraudulent activities. Despite being a relatively low-level employee in his early twenties, he decided to do something about it. So he wrote a letter to the company’s CEO outlining the problems as he saw them. […]
Anyone who has ever experienced the heart-wrenching scene of a dog or a cow separated from their young knows that animals have feelings. Witnessing those painful cries and bellows is enough to make some folks vegetarians. Yet anyone who has stuck around a bit longer—or revisited a cow pasture a few days after the calves […]
A few passages from the recent New York Times piece which looks at the internal and ethical struggles of Stoic philosophers through history…up until today. “In the ancient world, as is true today, navigating political chaos was a pressing dilemma. Philosophers were forced to decide whether to participate in, resist or simply endure the political rulers of their time. […]
We can imagine that the job of the emperor was not an easy one. Marcus would have had enormous responsibilities and despite his absolute power, he still had to deal constantly with his advisors, with his family, with his guards, with the Senate and with his magistrates. He had to deal with the Roman people […]
This is a guest post by Alex J. Hughes, a writer and software product manager based in Nashville, TN. He is also the author of the popular article on our site “8 Stoic Secrets to Help You Build Mental Toughness.” *** “Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout […]
As remarkable of a text the Enchiridion is, being one of the canonical texts of Stoic philosophy, and one of the most important ancient documents that we are fortunate to have access to, the story of its creator is equally as impressive. Epictetus rose to become one of the most important Stoic philosophers, but the […]