You lose your job. A relationship ends. That thing you had high hopes for falls flat. Something, anything, goes wrong. “Ugh, just my luck.” You wonder, “Why does it always rain on me?” But wait. If you look around, you’ll see plenty of other people are getting wet too. No, not just your luck -…
It’s a great feeling when you start to see progress. When you’ve been practicing a new skill and you start to get the hang of it, or when you’ve been building something piece by piece and it starts to take shape. It’s a feeling that we too often deprive ourselves of by not taking on…
If I eat this donut, my doctor won’t know. If I do two fewer pushups, my coach won’t know. If I lie to my family just this once, they won’t know. If I skip this self-directed homework, my tutor won’t know. If I slack off while working from home, my boss won’t know. No. Stop…
Gregory B. Sadler is the editor of Stoicism Today, the president of ReasonIO, and an adjunct professor at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He's also a YouTuber, a podcaster, a speaker and an author. The one thing that ties all these activities together is philosophy, which also makes him a philosopher. You can find…
Stoic philosophy is driven by four guiding virtues - wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. They are the principles that students should seek to practice if they are to exemplify the character of a Stoic. The virtues are thought to be derived from the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plato, who defined the same four principles…
It’s all too easy to take on too much. Whether it be work or personal commitments, the more we say yes to, the harder it is to balance everything. We try to multitask, we try to increase our work-rate to get tasks ticked off - we end up getting stressed. With deadlines looming or with…
If my calculations are correct, today’s post completes a run of posting one article per week for every week of 2020. The articles have included interviews, exercises, and essays both short and long. While I’m pleased to have maintained the consistency, I’m more pleased that people have actually been reading what I’ve been publishing. Some…
The Stoics have always been known for their commitment to preparation. Think of Cato immunizing himself against future hardship by inviting insults and leaving his home barefoot, or Seneca advising Lucilius that “It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress.” The old…
Something crazy happens every day I worry about the future. About 150,000 people die. I don’t think I’m causing it but still, it’s another incentive to stop. Things I worry about: Will I hit this or that "life milestone" by this or that age?Will I achieve as much as those around me?Will I have the…
The more you learn about Stoicism, the more you realise the philosophy’s principles are at work in places other than just books by the Stoics or about them. It becomes easier to spot ideas that are complementary to the Stoic way of life. It even feels appropriate to make the effort to do so given…