If you’ve ever heard the name Leonardo da Vinci, the first thing you’ll probably associate with the famous Italian is painting. His masterpieces are some of the most well-known works of art in history. The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Salvator Mundi (the most expensive painting ever sold) were…
The following is a conservative estimate. Every day, 500 million tweets are sent on Twitter, 95 million photos are uploaded to Instagram, and 55 million status updates are posted on Facebook. Add in shares, likes, comments and time spent watching video, and the numbers are dizzying. That’s a lot of…
The Stoics were avid writers, often for no other purpose than collecting and reviewing their own thoughts. In fact, Marcus Aurelius' best-known work, Meditations, was a series of his own notes and never intended to be read by anyone else. Epictetus and Seneca also recommended regular journaling to their students…
In his book Reasons To Stay Alive, Matt Haig says anxiety can be a “full-time occupation of gale-force worry”. From personal experience, this rings true. It can occupy days and weeks with fear, and then leave you regretting the time you wasted. You dread the future and then get caught…
For most professional athletes, turning pro is the realisation of a dream. Years of dedication and sacrifice are rewarded when pen hits paper to sign that first contract. For Fabio Quagliarella, however, becoming a professional footballer for Torino in 1999 was only part one of the dream. Part two was…
To the unfamiliar, the term Stoic Philosophy provides little excitement. It sounds ancient and stale; probably something you don’t read unless you’re an elderly professor wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches. Ryan Holiday was introduced to Stoicism at the age of 19. Tim Ferriss came across Seneca at around…
Most of us are guilty of regularly buying things we don’t need. Maybe it’s an unmissable sale that tempts us to add to our growing number of possessions, maybe we think that new purchase will make us feel good, or maybe we’re just trying to impress people. Later we realise…
I've seen a few versions of the fisherman and the businessman story; this one is from blog of writer Paulo Coelho. It's superb in its simplicity and the Stoic feel is obvious so it requires no further commentary. Enjoy! There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach…
Ah there it is, my alarm clock alerting me to the beginning of another day. The same shrill tone and urgent rhythm normally precedes fire damage which I find symbolic some days. But not today. Not this day that has just begun at 6:00 AM. I’m ready to explode out…
The writer William Zinsser once wrote an article called “The News From Timbuktu” about his trip to the Malian city to witness camel caravans carrying salt across the Sahara. He was thrilled by the sight of forty camels proceeding in unison over the vast desert, but it was another incident…