The Daily Stoic
Episodes
How To Make Better Decisions in Life
25 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Believe it or not, there’s a pretty magical way to start making better decisions. It’s a secret that will also make you feel better, look better, ...
Don't Limit Yourself
24 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Epicurus’s dictum was that “One sage is no wiser than another.” Clearly, Seneca agreed with this idea because he loved quoting Epicurus, even th...
If You Were Tested, Would You Pass?
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps you remember the 90s hit by the band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “The Impression That I Get.” You know, the ‘neeeeevvvvvvveeeerrrrrr ha...
We Are What We Think About
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ok, so it’s worth saying bluntly to any of the nice people out there who might believe in it: The Law of Attraction is complete horseshit. If you ne...
What Other People Get Away With Is Not An Excuse
21 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Let us stipulate first that Serena Williams is an extremely talented tennis player and an honest and ethical person. Let us also stipulate that she ha...
We Must Live By This Rule
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Zigong once asked Confucius: “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” His reply: “Is not RECIPROCITY such...
When Are You Going To Be Free?
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us tell ourselves that we’re putting up with ill-treatment or keeping our mouths shut about our beliefs because we’re working on something...
How To Respond To Crazy People
16 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One suspects Marcus Aurelius was referring to a particularly frustrating person, some opponent who just would not, or could not, get the message, when...
Don’t Be Distracted By Darkness
15 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no question that depressing things happen in this world. They always have and always will. People lie, cheat, steal. Envy, avarice, selfishn...
The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of using the American Civil War as a metaphor, not just to explain the divisive political landscape, but the divide wi...
This Is What Karma Looks Like
11 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter...
The Great Equalizer
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The author Michael Malice has a running gag: whenever a celebrity dies he posts a meme that says RIP but is a photo of a similar looking but a very di...
If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit
09 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s not much in Stoicism that’s particularly groundbreaking: Focus on what you can control. Be a good person. Manage your emotions. A lot of ...
Find A Point!
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Barton’s beautiful memoir, Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, takes readers along a man’s search for meaning when he’s forced to conf...
The Habit You Must Start This Year
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why does Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations speak to us so? The answer, ironically, is that because the author had zero intention of doing so—in fact, ...
The One Thing You Must Avoid
04 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine this. You’ve worked for years on this novel—one that is indisputably the best thing you’ve ever done. You manage to get a publisher to b...
Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tereza, as the Prague Spring happens and the Soviets begin a military occupation, takes the time to rescue a cro...
It’s Not How Long You Live, It’s How You Live
02 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In late December, Richard Overton passed away at the ripe old age of 112 and 230 days. When he was born, Theodore Roosevelt was President of the Unite...
Keep These Thoughts At Hand, Everyday
01 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Stoics were all about routine and concentration. Epictetus said that philosophy was something that should be kept at hand every day and night. Ind...
What We Do In Life Does Not Echo In Eternity
31 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the movie Gladiator, Maximus, the protege of Marcus Aurelius, says famously, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity.” It’s a powerful, inspi...
Don’t Wait. Get Started. Now.
28 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is that weird time of year where we start to think about how we want the following year to go. We call them “resolutions” and they are the pr...
Everything Is Breaking Down
27 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly two thousand years before Rudolph Clausius and Lord Kelvin first expressed the second law of thermodynamics (although there is debate on whethe...
Why You Need To Understand Power
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The actor Josh Peck recently had Robert Greene on his podcast to discuss the book, The Laws of Human Nature. It’s a fascinating interview, but one o...
Today Is A Very Special Day
25 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On December 25th, people all over the world celebrate Christmas, a holiday which marks the birth of Jesus Christ, one of the greatest philosophers who...
You Make Your Own Good Fortune
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We can all remember times when it felt like everything was going our way. We were getting the breaks we wanted and opportunities came easy. It was the...
Life Comes At You Fast Pt II
21 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Just two and a half years ago, General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good m...
How To Be The MVP
19 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Yet again, Nick Foles has been called up to start at quarterback for the Eagles. After spending another heartbreaking season on the bench behind first...
14 Day Stoic Challenge: New Year, New You
18 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We all know someone who constantly puts stuff off. Who loves to plan improvements for their health, their finances, their work, their friendships, the...
Here Are Signs You’re Making Progress
17 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ok, you’ve been doing your reading and your journaling. You’re trying to be conscious of your thoughts and your actions. In short, you’re puttin...
You Do You. Whether They Like it Or Not.
14 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Think of all the people throughout history who were wrongly condemned and criticized by the mob. From the Civil Rights Activists to Galileo to ordinar...
You Don’t Get To Be Apolitical
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There is a common complaint drifting through the culture these days: Why did you have to bring politics into things? Can’t she or he just sing/dance...
Don’t Let Your Virtues Become This Vice
12 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
So we’ve begun to get serious about our training, both physical and philosophical. Before, we never read, and now we do. Before, we were lazy and sl...
Be Good To Each Other
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“Man’s inhumanity to manMakes countless thousands mourn.”It is a verse from the poet Robert Burns. It was a favorite of Ulysses S. Grant as well...
We Aren’t Rational, We Become Rational
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us don’t think of ourselves as irrational. We don’t think we’re reactive creatures. We presume that we’re in control of our emotions, ...
This Is How They Treat You After You’re Gone
07 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Da Vinci painted his brilliant fresco, The Last Supper, and how did they respond? They nagged at him for taking too long. Then, after he finished, the...
What Would You Do?
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
News reports re-surfaced earlier this month that the teenaged son of Jeff Flake, the Republican Senator, had made a number of homophobic and racist co...
The Powerful Are Not Free
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s funny that we spend so much time being jealous of people whose lives we do not even begin to understand. People look at the famous and the powe...
It’s All In How You See It
03 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Seneca said that the growth of anything is a long process, but its undoing can be rapid, even instant. Jordan Harbinger built his career for 11 years....
These Are Life Choices You Control
30 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
If you haven’t heard of George Raveling, you should. This a guy that Michael Jordan addresses as “coach” even though Raveling never coached the ...
It’s Always Been This Way, Always Will Be
29 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We like to think that we’re so advanced. That things have changed so radically since the ancient days of tyrants and barbarism. But have they? Here...
Power and Success Can Make You Better
28 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Lord Acton’s line is so famous and so undeniably true that most people don’t even know that it’s a quote from a real person: Power corrupts and ...
Making A Difference IS Up To You
27 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Look, there’s no way around it: Part of Stoicism is accepting that a lot of what happens in the world is outside our control. Some people have taken...
What Is Sympatheia? (And Why It’s So Damn Important)
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Book Six of Meditations, Marcus gives himself (and us) a command to keep an important idea in mind. “Meditate often,” he writes, “on the inte...
Do Not Avoid This Thought
23 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene concludes his final chapter with this meditation on mortality:“Many of us spend our lives a...
What Marcus Learned From Antoninus
22 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Where did Marcus learn to be Marcus? Ernest Renan writes that Marcus was very much a product of his training and his tutors. But more than his teacher...
Don’t Get Upset By What You Disagree With
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The response to the Daily Stoic emails can be a fascinating peek into human psychology. One email, because it makes a fairly objective point about Don...
Write And Think Clearly
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his short new edition of How To Be Free, A.A Long observes the relative ease he had translating Epictetus from ancient Greek into English. This is ...
The Best Way To Fight Evil
19 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Tolstoy believed his most essential work was not his novels but his daily read, A Calendar of Wisdom. Like in The Daily Stoic, each day in that book i...
The Dance We Each Will Dance
16 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It would be hard to find a deeper, darker yet more philosophically interesting short film than the “Silly Symphony” that Walt Disney produced in 1...
The Perils of ‘Comfort Inflation’
15 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s so easy to take progress and luxury for granted. Warren Buffet has talked about how somebody today--with the comforts of heating and air condit...
The Most Important Ritual You Can Practice This Year
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Marcus Aurelius spend those precious hours in his tent, writing by the lamplight, even on the nights and mornings he strained under the burden...
Be A User, Not A Loser
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. D.T. Suzuki, a 20th century Japanese author who was largely responsible for popularizing Buddhism, Zen, and Shin in the West, was once approached ...
You Become Like Your Friends
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“Nature gave us friendship,” Cicero wrote, “as an aid to virtue, not as a companion to vice.”What he meant was that friends are supposed to ma...
Get Yourself Under Control
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It was Heraclitus--a favorite of Marcus Aurelius--who said that “to be self-controlled is the greatest of excellence.” Isn’t that the truth? It’...
We Have So Much In Common
08 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In a very short period around 2003, the musician Rosanne Cash lost her sister, her step mother, her father , and her mother. It was a series of blows ...
Your Hunger For Money Is Starving You
07 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
William MacAskill is a fascinating guy. He is the youngest Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He’s one of the founders o...
Each Of Us Has A Duty
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In one sense, it’s hard to argue with the statistics that any individual’s vote makes a difference. One person out of so many? When more than 50% ...
Let Us Argue With Reality No More
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
So much of what we do as a society could be described as arguing with reality. Turn on cable news and you’ll find talking heads screaming at their u...
Don’t Borrow Suffering
02 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a line from Seneca: “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” Meaning, we spend so much time worried about how bad things are goin...
Let It Go, You’re Plenty Guilty Yourself
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Like you’ve never cut in line, on purpose or on accident. Like you’ve never done something selfish or spoken with an attitude. Like you’ve nev...
Don't Be A Snowflake
31 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, conservative commentators in America began using a term for young college students--mostly liberal--who insisted on #noplatforming sp...
Is Anxiety Playing Tricks On You?
30 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
You’ll likely know Charlamagne Tha God as the host of the nationally revered radio show The Breakfast Club where provocative celebrity interviews he...
The Present Is Pleasurable Enough
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On one of his more arduous hunts, after days of patiently tracking (and weeks of planning before that), crawling through the dirt and enduring difficu...
We Are So Soon Forgotten
26 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A few miles outside Rome, along the still-smooth stone-paved Appian Way, is a tall brick tomb that is rumored to belong to Seneca. Unfortunately, no o...
Time Doesn’t Make Everything Better...It Just Makes Them What They Are
25 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When we get dumped or we fail or we lose someone, we often hear that “Time heals all wounds” or some such remark, all of it in consolation. Obviou...
Be Severe Only With Yourself
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the things that separates us from other people--indeed that has been responsible for our success--is our ability to be strict and self-discipli...
We All Have The Same Nature
23 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Greene’s five international bestsellers earned him descriptions like genius and master of human behavior. His newest book was just released. ...
We Take The Bitter To Get To The Sweets
22 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“The hunter worthy of the name always willingly takes the bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and gladly balances failure and success, spurn...
How To Be A Winner and a Loser
19 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Lombardi is a former NFL coach, GM and front office strategist who is largely responsible for introducing Stoic philosophy to professional spo...
Accepting The Little Facts of Life
18 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1800s, Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Big Hole Basin in Montana. The trip did not get off to a good start. Upon getting off t...
Don’t Make This Mistake
17 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There is a repeated pattern of failure in Marcus Aurelius’s life, and no matter how much we might admire him, it’s hard to deny it. His step broth...
Are You A Coward? Or Are You Brave?
16 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Varlam Shalamov was a brilliant writer who was sentenced in 1937 to years of hard labor in a Soviet gulag. If that were not painful enough, though he ...
Why Ego Is Your Enemy
15 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous defined ego as “a conscious separation from.” From what? From everything and everyone, including...
Don’t Be All About Business
12 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Is there anything sadder than a person whose work is their life? They neglect their family, they put in crazy hours, they have no interests, no hobbie...
Why Do You Care What They Think?
11 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a moment that almost everyone remembers from their childhood. They have just received something they really liked--a new shirt, a new toy, a...
What You Think You’re Lacking Is The Problem
10 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
George Ball, the diplomat and advisor to President Kennedy (one of who David Halberstam would call ‘the best and the brightest’), once observed ab...
Love Always
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
1981 was a tough year for tennis great Billie Jean King. That year, she sat down to write her memoir having endured serious betrayal on multiple front...
Things Worse Than Dying
08 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Death and dying are the worst parts of life, right? After all, they do end the whole thing. So while it does make sense, generally, to try to avoid d...
If Today Was Your Last Day
05 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We put a lot of thought into making distinctions about what’s urgent and what’s not. We put a lot of effort into planning. We have our conservativ...
We Pay The Iron Price
04 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Game of Thrones, the people of the Iron Islands believe they have been entitled by God to steal and seize whatever they like. Women, land, possessi...
Nothing Exempts You From Hard Work
03 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s interesting, if you think about Greek and Roman mythology, that the Gods were so active and busy. Athena and Circe and Hermes all worked to hel...
Nothing Can Touch The Soul
02 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun and the song it inspired, One by Metallica, tell the story of Joe Bonham, a soldier who has been grievously inju...
It’s Time To Get Up. It’s Time To Get Up
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One of the best passages in all of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is the opener to Book V. In it, Marcus has a dialog with himself as he struggles to...
Another Reason To Journal
28 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Walter Isaacson’s wonderful new biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, he spends a lot of time dissecting and exploring the ideas in Da Vinci’s notebo...
Don’t Make This Mistake (Or Stop Before It’s Too Late)
27 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why are good people attracted to serving bad people or bad causes? Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Seneca advised Nero. Da Vinci attached himsel...
Love Not Hate
26 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s easy to stir up resentment, harder to create common ground. It’s easy to point out what’s wrong, it’s much more difficult to come up with...
Make Sure You're Coming Home
21 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
All of us have day jobs. Even professional philosophers are still professors or authors, which means they have other responsibilities than just thinki...
Different Folks Need Different Strokes
20 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Confucius was once asked for advice by a student, and in replying essentially urged him to wait and be patient. Later he was asked for advice by anoth...
What To Do When You’re Not Naturally Perfect
19 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It was on this day in the year 86 AD, that Antoninus Pius, the man who would become best known as the stepfather of Marcus Aurelius, was born. Most pe...
Approach Your Troubles Like Doctor
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s famously said that you should learn from the mistakes of others because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. In that way, th...
This Will Help You Get Rid Of Crazy Thoughts
17 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Aaron Thier’s novel The World Is A Narrow Bridge (the title is a proverb we have written about before), one of the main characters is a runner. H...
Virtue Is Contagious (and Has Obligations)
14 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The line from Confucius was that “Virtue is never solitary; it always has neighbors.” What he meant by that was that good behavior and good thinki...
It Comes For All, Young And Old
13 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The New York Times Obituary section this past weekend featured a somberly diverse list of losses: William Jordan, the impressionist, was dead at 91. E...
What Should Good People Do?
12 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Confucius, like Seneca, was an interesting hybrid of philosopher and politician. For instance, in addition to his teachings and writings, he pushed fo...
The Ideal Weapon For Spiritual Combat
11 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Michel Foucault has a fascinating essay on journaling entitled “Self-Writing.” In it, he describes journaling as a “weapon in spiritual combat,”...
You Are Worth Fighting For
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Given that a number of prominent Stoics committed suicide, and that suicide was described by Epictetus as the “...
Study The Lives of The Greats
07 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It would be this Sunday that in the year 1813, General William Henry Harrison sent three volumes of an ancient book to his 15 year old son, John. The ...
The Only Kind Of Comparison Worth Doing
06 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It is said that comparison is the thief of joy and is, therefore, mostly to be avoided. This is true. You’re on your own journey with your own uniqu...
How Are You Still Not Doing This?
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in Vita Antonii that the reason he did his journaling--his confessing, as the genre was called by the Christians-...
This Message Is Waiting For You
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On April 24th 1924, the pioneer writer Laura Ingalls Wilder got a note that he mother, aged 84, had died. It was a sad day, particularly since it had ...