The One Thing To Be A Slave To
Slavery is one of the most common metaphors in Seneca’s writing. He talks about people who are slaves to sex and slaves to work. He talks about people who are slaves to their anxiety. He even mentions...
19 Helmi 20192min
This Is What Progress Looks Like
How do you know you’re making progress in this philosophy? It’s a question that every person has struggled with at some point in their practice, including Seneca. When he was writing his famous letter...
18 Helmi 20192min
This Is How To Go Out
Epicurus’s final letter begins with a rather remarkable sentence: “On this happy day, which is the last day of my life, I write the following words to you.” While the letter briefly touches on the pai...
15 Helmi 20192min
It Can Happen To You
A few weeks ago, we ran an email about Austin Murphy, the former Sports Illustrated writer whose thirty year career (which included interviewing presidents and champions) somehow ended in a gig delive...
14 Helmi 20193min
Escape This Indelible Stain
In Meditations, Marcus speaks passionately about escaping the “indelible stain” of power, of being changed by the purple cloak that the emperor traditionally wore. It is a timeless warning for anyone ...
13 Helmi 20194min
An Important Reminder To Do The Right Thing
Our newest Daily Stoic coinSummum Bonum is an expression from Cicero, Rome’s greatest orator. In Latin, it means “the highest good.” And what is the highest good? What is it that we are supposed to be...
12 Helmi 20193min
What Will You Do Now?
In the winter of 1824, things were not looking good for Simon Bolivar. He was at one of the lowest points of his decade-plus long revolution of South America. Many of the countries he had freed from S...
11 Helmi 20193min
YOU Are Not The Problem
Epictetus’s most powerful line is about how it’s not things that upset us, but what we think about things that does all the damage. What he really meant is that our sense of what an obstacle or a disa...
8 Helmi 20192min
