The Daily Stoic
Episodes
Haven’t You Done That Before?
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It is certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clients. We he...
What Do You Look Like Angry?
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Getting angry is not a good look. We know this because we see how ugly other people look when they get mad. How childish they seem. How pathetic their...
You’re Not That Important
19 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, a horse at The Preakness threw its jockey right out of the gate and kept running. Like really kept running. It ran the whole race twi...
This Is Universal
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Traveling—that itch to get away, to hit the road, to see the world—feels like a distinctly modern craze. Yet it was common in Ancient Rome for peo...
Are You Self-Aware?
17 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Evan Thomas, in his incisive and humanizing biography of Richard Nixon, asks a penetrating question: How many great men of history were truly self-awa...
Nothing Wrong With Nice Stuff
16 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Seneca was a very rich man. He had nice stuff. Critics at the time, and ever since, have found this to be indisputable proof of his hypocrisy. How can...
These Things Have No Power Over You
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
So much has happened in the past. We’ve messed up. We’ve been hurt. We’ve missed opportunities and we’ve embarrassed ourselves. So much can h...
Does Greatness Require Ego?
12 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
While we all hold up humility as an admirable trait, we’re not always sure it can get us to the goals we aspire to. We look at a Kanye West or a Don...
We Must Increase What We Have Been Given
11 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the Book of Matthew, we are told of the parable of the talents. Three servants are left sums of money (talents) by their master. The first, who the...
Assume Everyone Is Lying
10 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve probably caught yourself doing it. Life has been rough or depressing, but your social media feed looks awesome. Someone asks how much money y...
Pity The Ego
09 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Stoics were not unacquainted with awful people. They saw tyrants. They saw cheats. They saw toxic egomaniacs and insatiable ambitions. And what wa...
Just A Few Seconds Of Courage
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2006, Benjamin Mee bought a zoo. Literally a zoo. It was broken down and in desperate need of a caring owner. Mee and his family were struggling to...
Are You Ready To Be Challenged?
05 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s very easy to get comfortable. To build up your life exactly how you want it to be. Minimize inconveniences and hand off the stuff you don’t l...
Freedom Isn't Free
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The fact that America exists is the ultimate argument that Stoicism is not apathy and that philosophy is not mere theory. Because without Stoicism, it...
Do Less
03 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Unlike so many of the other philosophical schools, the Stoics were doers. The Epicureans might have been content to play in their gardens and the Cyni...
Who The True Stoics Were
02 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to run down the list of the great Stoics of history, who would come to mind?Seneca. Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus. Maybe if you really knew y...
Real Power Can’t Be Taken Away
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Twice, Seneca was exiled. Twice, he basically lost everything. Money. Access. Influence. It all went away, like *that.* How did he handle it? The fir...
You Have To Take Care of Yourself
28 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
King George IV was a notorious glutton. His breakfast supposedly consisted of two pigeons, three steaks, a near full bottle of wine, and a glass of br...
Justice Doesn't Have To Be Angry
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When we hear about an athlete who was doubted and kicked around, or an entrepreneur who ends up buying the previously dominant company that once spurn...
What Do You Live By?
26 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
William Alexander Percy, the uncle of the great writer Walker Percy, and one of the last Southern Stoics, was a famous host. His mansion in Greenville...
Never Attribute To Malice…
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
People do a lot of things that feel mean. That frustrate us. That cause problems for us. That make the world a worse place. They vote for bad politici...
Break Out and Break Free
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We live in the freest time in the freest places in the history of the world. Yet many of us feel far from free. We are slaves to vices and devices, to...
It’s About The Paring Down
21 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Really what the Stoics were trying to do is pare down what they had to worry about. That’s why Epictetus said our first job was just to determine wh...
Practice These Virtues
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Virtue is one of those words that contains multitudes. If you think about it, being virtuous is not doing one thing all the time, or even lots of thin...
You Must Think It
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Richard III and in Othello, Shakespeare has two different characters utter the same line. Both Iago and a nameless orphan say, “I cannot think it...
Do You Want To Be Less Angry?
18 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The best way to make sure you are always offended and upset is to be on the lookout for things to be offended by and upset about. The sharper your ear...
Tell The Truth, Even If They Hate You For It
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is a certain archetype that is as old as literature and history themselves. One of the first times we see it in the West is with Cassandra in th...
It’s OK To Struggle
14 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nietzsche’s classic line was “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” It’s a nice sentiment, but is it true? Don’t people who were born w...
It Doesn’t Matter What You Do, It Matters How You Do It
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The occupations of the three most well-known Stoics could not be more different. Seneca was a playwright, a wealthy landowner, and a political advisor...
Never Abandon Your Ideals
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Anne Frank would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. Although her life was cut tragically short, so much of her preternatural wisdom survives to ...
Why It’s Important To Be Healthy
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It wouldn’t seem like eating well would be an important part of the philosopher’s job, but indeed it is. Antoninus Pius, the adopted stepfather of...
How To Think About Obstacles
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We can think of hardship many ways: As failure. As unfairness. As the end of the conversation. Clearly, this was not meant to be, we can say. They don...
When You Need Help...
07 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you’re having a difficult time in your relationship. Or work has worn you down. Maybe things have gone exceedingly well in your business and n...
What The Simple Life Is
06 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Seneca wasn’t fond of philosophers you could recognize. Not by their fame, but by their uniform. In his time, just as it is in ours, there was a typ...
The Earth Is Big And Has Room For Everyone
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is a line in the Odyssey (most recently translated by Seneca’s wonderful biographer, Emily Wilson). Odysseus, still early on in his journey ho...
Good Stuff Comes Out Of Bad Circumstances
04 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If Marcus Aurelius had his choice, he probably never would have been emperor. If he could have chosen how his reign would go, he probably wouldn’t h...
An Easy Source of Encouragement
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Marcus Aurelius write his Meditations? It wasn’t for an audience. It wasn’t simply to practice his Greek or his rhetorical abilities—he ...
Stop Wasting Time on Trivialities
31 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his twenty-third letter to Lucilius, Seneca opens with some meta snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever been trapped in a banal conversatio...
The Best Technology Ever Invented
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There have been all sorts of wonderful technological innovations since Marcus Aurelius’s time, particularly in the domain of writing. We got the pri...
It’s OK To Cry
29 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We know that Marcus Aurelius cried when he was told that his favorite tutor passed away. We know that he cried that day in court, when he was overseei...
What Do You Have To Draw On?
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For most of us, things are pretty good right now. The economy is booming. Our jobs or our personal lives are going well. Most of the doomsday predicti...
Things Don’t Make The Man
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s very easy to associate our possessions and our positions with our identity. There’s even an expression to that effect: The clothes make the m...
It’s Not As Unfortunate As It Seems
24 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Things we didn’t want to happen happen to all of us. A business deal falls through. A grade comes back that we didn’t expect. A person we care abo...
The Road To Ladies and Gentlemen Again
23 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Two years ago, the world lost a great scholar and Stoic philosopher, Peter Lawler. Peter, a longtime writer for National Review and political science ...
You’ll Be Happier If You’re Realistic
22 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We tell ourselves that if we just get paid more or get promoted, we’ll stop being so miserable at work. Or we dream for months in advance about some...
Eat And Be Merry
21 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago a study by Brad Bushman at Ohio State University found a link between low blood sugar and arguments between spouses. It pretty much co...
Make It Happen. Whatever It Takes.
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her solo exploits are well known. Less so is that Earhart ...
Don’t Let Yourself Be Rushed
17 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Caro is getting old and people are getting worried. He’s now 83 and each day that passes makes it increasingly unlikely that he’ll ever fin...
Find The Space
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Think about the last time that someone made you upset. What did they say? What did they do? Now think back: How did you react? What did you say? What ...
How To Overcome Selfishness
15 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bertrand Russell was no fan of the Stoics. He thought they were cold, hated riches and passion. He thought Seneca and Marcus were hypocrites. But then...
The Only Measure of Success
14 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s plenty written about people pushing through failure, pulling themselves out of the depths of despair, rising above against all odds. There a...
Look For Teachable Moments
13 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the eve of the 2008 election, the journalist Joe Klein asked Barack Obama how he’d made his decision to respond to the brewing scandal about Obam...
If It’s Right, It’s Right For You
10 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes we get asked or tasked with doing stuff in life we’d rather not have to do. Maybe that’s working a less than glamorous job when we’re ...
You Decide The End of The Story
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When James Stockdale was shot down in Vietnam, he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He spent seven years being tortured and subjected to uni...
The First and Most Important Victory
08 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s easy to look at people who are calm and self-disciplined and assume that their disposition comes naturally to them, or that it is somehow divin...
Who To Be Friends With?
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Of the Stoics, Seneca seems like the one who had the most fun. He’s the one who it’s easiest to picture spending time with friends or mingling at ...
Don’t Sell Out
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his Discourses, Epictetus asks a probing question: “Your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a...
Be Sure To Love Them While You Still Can
03 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In one of the darkest passages in all of Stoic thought, Epictetus discusses the prospect of putting your child to bed and saying goodbye to them in yo...
Do Your Duty, Every Day, Everywhere
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was recently interviewed by the New York Times about his grueling travel schedule, which will include 22 c...
You’ll Never Get To Perfect
01 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Rosanne Cash tells a story in her memoir, Composed about a performance she did with George Harrison. Dress rehearsal had gone wonderfully but the perf...
You Can Admit You Were Wrong
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A Stoic is determined, but not obstinate. A Stoic controls what they can, recognizes they cannot change that which is out of their control, but that t...
Make Beautiful Choices
29 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Epictetus says that “if your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.” It’s simple and it’s true. You are what your choices make you, nothin...
Do This For Your Future Self
26 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and author, Derek Sivers, recently wrote an article that began, “You know those...
Always Think Of Their Intentions
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a culture where people sit on the sidelines and pass a lot of strong judgements. We look at people we don’t know and decide whether they’...
Difficulty Is Forging Us Into Who We Need To Be
24 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Look, nobody wants to go through hard times. We’d prefer that things go according to plan, that what could go wrong doesn’t, so that we might enjo...
We All Share This Thing Together
23 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Yesterday was the 49th year we celebrated Earth Day...in the 4.5 billionth year of the Earth’s existence. In 1970, at the height of counterculture i...
When You're Having A Bad Day
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Theodore Roosevelt famously said that comparison is the thief of joy. Using what other people have or what they’ve done to chart your progress, hold...
The Race To Run Is Against Yourself
19 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It can be deceiving to hear the Stoics talk about an indifference to external recognition or rewards. Marcus says that fame is meaningless. Seneca tal...
Look For The Good
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Ingalls Wilder had a hard scrabble existence. From the Kansas prairies to the backwoods of Florida, she and her family eked out a life from some...
Don’t Worry About Being Respected
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a conversation on “You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes” about Martin Luther King Jr., the screenwriter and director Adam McKay talked about the ...
No Room For “Them”
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“They” hold up very poorly in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Marcus holds up very poorly when “they”...
How To Bounce Back
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When you begin to type “Marcus Lattimore” into Google, the first suggestion is “injury”. On October 27th, 2012, on live television, running ba...
Here’s A Reason To Be Good
12 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The funny thing about egotistical people is that—despite any power or wealth they might have—they are really easy to manipulate. All you have to d...
Freedom To or Freedom From?
11 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At the core of legal theory is this idea that there are essentially two forms of liberty—positive and negative. Positive liberty is the freedom to d...
All That Matters Is How We Respond
09 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was the great Athenian leader, Pericles, who said that there was nothing wrong with poverty. It could be caused by so many things—a business fail...
Do You Want To Be Less Angry?
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Few people have studied the life and writings of Seneca as deeply as James Romm has. Romm is the author of a great biography of Seneca, Dying Every Da...
What Goes Up, Must Come Down
05 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Each of has been blessed by Fortune. We’re alive right now, instead of 50 or 500 years ago. We were born free, and not into slavery. We’re reading...
Do Better Where You Can
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When we look at the lives of a great man like Marcus Aurelius or a great woman like the Catholic activist Dorothy Day, it’s easy to be intimidated. ...
You Are Here On The Mountaintop
03 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The point of memento mori is not to make you sad. It’s not to make you anxious about how few days you may have left. On the contrary, it’s suppose...
It's Just The Glasses
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his wonderful new book How To Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, historian,...
All Things Can Be Used for a Purpose
01 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the benefits of being an artist is that everything that happens to you—no matter how traumatic or frustrating—has at least one hidden benef...
Friendship Makes Life Worth Living
29 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
By now you may have read the viral story about the unexpected friendship between Charles Barkley and the late Lin Wang, a cat litter scientist from Io...
Do Not Be Afraid
28 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Life is pretty great, usually. Until you start thinking about what’s on the other side. That’s when things get less certain; when the fear of deat...
Know It Inside And Out
27 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy in the United States and an unsung hero in the history of the world, was once asked by a Congre...
Take The Time To Be Grateful
26 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
AJ Jacobs is known for his unique style of immersion journalism. He’s lived, literally, according to the Bible. He’s went out and met every obscur...
We Are All Tested In Different Ways
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was said that Socrates saw his difficult marriage as a sort of challenge that life threw at him—that the fact that his wife’s personality and i...
It Smells Like...Life
22 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The German poet Friedrich Schiller supposedly liked to write with a drawer filled with rotting apples tucked into his desk. The smell was overpowering...
Are You Tired Trying To Fill That Void?
21 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
All of us are trying to find something. Trying to find meaning, love, contentment. Because we feel like something is missing. That’s why we keep our...
Do Your Best
20 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Gretchen Rubin is one of the most thought-provoking and influential experts on habits and happiness. She has written several New York Times best selle...
Beware the Voice in Your Head
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Seneca tells the story of the philosopher Crates, who was walking in Athens when he saw a young man talking to no one around. “What are you doing?”...
What It Really Means To Be A Slave
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Epictetus was born a slave. Quite literally, his name means, in Greek, acquired. Ultimately, he came to be the property of a man named Epaphroditus, w...
The Most Important Thing: Realizing That We Are All One
15 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s take a second to meditate on this observation from John Cage, the experimental musician and student of Zen philosophy:“That one sees that th...
Zoom Out...And Laugh
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The way to make all your problems, even the really vexing and painful ones, seem less severe? It comes from Seneca. All you have to do, he says, is:“...
Why You Should Read Biographies
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“I don’t have time to read a book that long,” you might say when someone recommends one of those epic volumes from the Ron Chernows and Robert C...
What Does It Feel Like To Lose All Your Money?
12 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, the writer Chuck Palahniuk received the kind of news that all of us dread. Someone he trusted—the book agent who had represented him for ...
Always, Ever The Same
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his wonderful book, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, the Pulitzer Prize winning scholar Stephen Greenblatt spends a lot of time analyzing a pivot...
Take What’s Good, Ignore The Rest
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of Seneca’s most powerful strategies comes from his time as a Senator. Speaking again of a thought from Epicurus, with which he only partly agre...
Now Is Now
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is a beautiful passage on the last page of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, The Little House in the Big Woods. She writes of an evening in the cabin wi...
Find A Good Outlet For Your Passions
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Although today we consider “passion” to be a good thing—as in find your passion—to the Stoics, the passions were something to be wary of. Desi...
Is Ego A Virtue?
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, Good Morning Britain anchor Susanna Reid presented her co-anchor (actually she calls him her TV husband), Piers Morgan, a gift. It was a copy...