The Daily Stoic

Latest Episodes:

How To Achieve Things | Reduce Wants, Increase Happiness Feb 20, 2023

Show notes

It’s always been difficult to concentrate. In one of his letters, Seneca talks about trying to write while Rome resounds beneath him with cacophony. There are street sellers and protestors and a fight and blacksmiths screaming and yelling and hammering down below. Now add to those typical sounds of the outside world, the chaos of our personal world–a buzzing iPhone, an overflowing inbox and endless Zoom meetings–and you get our daily nightmare.

But if we wish to succeed, as Seneca did, we must find a way to tune this all out.

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And in today's reading from the Daily Stoic Journal, Ryan dissecting three quotes from Epictetus in order to illustrate the Stoic idea of cultivating happiness in our lives by reducing the destructive habit of wanting more.

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How to Create Change in Your Life Feb 19, 2023

Show notes

Today’s audiobook reading features the second excerpt from The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello. Anthony was an Indian Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker who wrote several books on spirituality, including this collection of his last meditations on love and awareness. In today’s excerpt, Anthony discusses why awareness is a key part of creating real change in your life.

This book is published by the Center for Spiritual Exchange, and you can buy your copy at The Painted Porch.

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Sam Harris on Stoicism and Mindfulness Practice Feb 18, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Sam Harris about the overlap between eastern and western philosophy, how mindfulness practices like meditation help us become better Stoics, why he is so dedicated to providing his content for free, and more.

Sam Harris is a philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and host of the Making Sense Podcast. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. He has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Economist, London Times, The Boston Globe, and The Atlantic, and he has authored five five New York Times bestselling books, including The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason andWaking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.

Check out wakingup.com/dailystoic to try Sam’s hugely popular meditation app.

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Just Put It On My Tab | The Enemy of Happiness Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

Life was just one thing after another for Marcus Aurelius. The plague. The flooding. The wars. He did not meet with, “the good fortune he deserved,” one ancient historian noted, “as his whole reign was a series of troubles.”

Anyone who has had a run of bad luck knows the feeling. It’s frustrating and annoying and sometimes deeply unfair, but there is also something freeing about it. Because after a certain point, you stop fighting and start accepting.

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In todays Daily Stoic reading, Ryan explores how we can get out of the way of our own happiness by curbing our yearning.

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This Isn’t The Way To Practice Detachment | Ask Daily Stoic Feb 16, 2023

Show notes

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 type of person who, in reading about the Diogenes types or the tough Stoic types, thought that philosophy required that they give up their worldly possessions or start dressing like a bum.

Today, these types try to signal their virtue by driving a beat up old car or by showing you how little they own. See, they say, I am practicing detachment. See, I don’t want like you want. But these appearances can be deceiving.

And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan presents his part two of the Q&A from the Daily Stoic Stoicism 101 course in which he discusses the idea of being able to practice your philosophy wherever you are, the ins and out of the Stoic passions, how to go about reading ancient texts, and more.

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How To Be Free Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

Ruby Doris Smith died at age 25 of cancer. It was an unfair death, concluding a short, unfair life. For two and half decades on this earth – from 1942 to 1967 – she experienced the brutal day-to-day realities of Jim Crow segregation. Yet her tombstone laments none of this. Instead, it codifies into stone one of the most basic principles of the SNCC, the civil rights organization she had been so dedicated and active in during her short life. “IF YOU THINK FREE,” it reads, “YOU ARE FREE.”

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Massimo Pigliucci on Why Virtue Matters Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Professor Massimo Pigliucci about his new book The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders, what Alcibiades’s magnetism and lack of moral compass can teach us about what we look for in leaders today, the tension between being virtuous and being pragmatic, and more.

Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, the former co-host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast, the originator of Neoskepticism, and an advocate and popularizer of Stoicism. He wrote a viral piece in The New York Times called How to Be a Stoic as well as two books on Stoicism titled How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life and A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control a Stoic handbook. He also explores Stoic philosophy on his podcast Stoic Meditations.

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The Right Time Is Right Now | The Virtue That Made Marcus Aurelius So Great Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

We know what we want to do–or need to do. We need to quit that job. We need to have that hard conversation. We need to be more active in our community. We need to stop smoking or start eating healthy. We need to tell our crush we like them.

But when? That’s the question. Or at least, we tell ourselves that it is a question.

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Today, Ryan recounts one of the greatest stories in human history and talks about how Antoninus Pius taught Marcus Aurelius the most important virtue of all.

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How To Become Rich | Watch Over Your Perceptions Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

The writers Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) were at a glamorous party outside New York City. Standing in the palatial second home of the billionaire host, Vonnegut began to needle his friend. He described the exchange in a poem published in the New Yorker in 2005:

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

And today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses what the Stoics teach us about keeping constant watch over the flood of perceptions that fill our minds.

🎧 Listen to Ryan's interview with Molly Bloom

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How to Enjoy Life Fully Feb 12, 2023

Show notes

Today’s reading features an excerpt from The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello. Anthony was an Indian Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker who wrote several books on spirituality, including this collection of his last meditations on love and awareness. In today’s excerpt, Anthony explores the origins of our wants and desires, and how they translate into our quest for love.

This book is published by the Center for Spiritual Exchange, and you can buy your copy at The Painted Porch.

✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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