Recently I heard a song that I hadn’t listened to in years. I make the distinction between heard and listened because this time the song moved me in a way it never did before. It’s easy to listen to something without really processing it, it’s more difficult to hear it and thereby digest it. The…
When Chinese author Zhang Wei paid £7,600 to drink the world’s most expensive dram of whisky, he said, “In a nutshell, it tasted good. I was drinking not so much the whisky but a lot of history.” 139 years of history to be exact. Or so he thought. It was July 2017 when Mr. Zhang…
I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. The first day, the first month, the year incrementing by one - none of these things have ever held any weight for me. I’ve always thought Epictetus’s forcefully direct question to be apt - “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for…
When the book A Million Little Pieces was published in 2003, it was a huge milestone of vindication for author James Frey. He had spent the previous twelve years in France trying to become a writer. He could now finally say he was one. But it wasn’t getting published that made him feel like he…
In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” This Stoic reflection on the impermanence of life is known as Memento Mori, which is Latin for “remember you will die.” It’s a constant reminder not to take your time on earth for…
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 all produced by the careful…
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 virtual noise and a lot…
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 order to exercise their…
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 in the past. The cliched…
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 play for his hometown…