The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

Difficult people are one of the most reliable sources of suffering we have, and the Stoics knew it. Marcus filled his private notes with reminders to stay tolerant and kind with the people who tested ...

28 Touko 202128min

One Marcus Aurelius line has stuck with me more than most: stop arguing about what a good person should be, and just be one. It cuts straight through the temptation to theorise instead of act. In this...

8 Touko 202111min

I have trained martial arts for years, but my real love is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It has changed how I relate to my body, my sense of who I am, and the world around me. More than anything, it taught me ...

16 Huhti 202112min

Epictetus had a deceptively simple claim: it is not events that disturb us, but our judgements about them. Sit with that long enough and it changes how you meet almost everything. In this lesson I bre...

31 Maalis 20216min

One of the best meditation books I have read is The Mind Illuminated by John Yates, who writes as Culadasa. He holds a doctorate in neuroscience and tens of thousands of hours on the cushion, and it s...

24 Maalis 202114min

I read a lot, so it feels strange to say this, but reading books is a poor way to actually learn something. Exposure to ideas is not the same as living them. In this one I lay out how I think about le...

17 Maalis 202110min

A Stoic Handbook reader wrote in about pornography addiction, and I do my best to give it the careful answer it deserves. It is a nuanced subject and I try not to flatten it. Part of what makes it har...

5 Maalis 202126min

Work-life balance gets talked about as if it were a fixed point you could reach and hold. I think that framing sets us up to fail. In this one I share how I actually approach it. It should be useful f...

1 Maalis 202118min