Hello there, I was re-reading Epictetus’ Discourses as research for my next book, and had this idea I have been toying with for a while. Since we’re on the 30th week of the PEotW now (yes already 30 weeks guys!), I would like to begin a new routine of an exercise. We will do the same thing every 10th week […]
Hello there, With back to school around the corner, vacations ending and summer almost behind us, let us make an effort to strengthen our volition as we enter busier and more turbulent times with some simple words from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations IV 3 : “… tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.” In today’s popular lore, […]
Hello there, Last week we practiced changing a habit we prefer we did not indulge in too much. This week for our practice, let us go in the opposite direction and meditate on the one constant of the universe: Change. Marcus Aurelius – VII 18 “Does a man shrink from change? Why, what can come into being save by change? […]
Hello there, This week for our practice, let us grab some inspiration from the philosopher who inspired Zeno to find Stoicism. Socrates said in Plato’s Republic: “Pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain.” We all have vices. Some are obvious, others not so much. One of the first PEotW was in fact […]
Hello there, This week for our practice, let us admit we are not all-knowing, nor are we born with all the knowledge, and learn something we thought we already knew. Marcus Aurelius reminds us to keep learning what we think we already know in Meditations VI 21: “If any man is able to convince me and show me that I […]
Hello there, This week for our practice, let us focus on our fellow Cosmopolitans and find inspiration in the words of Seneca from his Moral Letters CIX 15: “It is in keeping with Nature to show our friends affection and to celebrate their advancement as if it were our very own. For if we don’t do this, virtue, which is […]
Hello there, This week for our practice, let us change our view from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Epictetus Discourses II 18.1-5: “Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions: walking by walking, and running by running…therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t […]
Hello there, This week for our practice (and do share what you think and how you practice), let us employ Epictetus’ words from his Discourses III 19 2-3: “For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it – my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would […]
Hello there, This week for our guidance, Marcus Aurelius reminds us we are fallible humans beings with a modus operandi of failing in our pursuit of virtue in Meditations VI 11: “When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to yourself and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts; […]
Hello there, This week for our guidance, Seneca tells us about the “other side of the coin” vis a vis his cautioned advice to give up what is unnecessary in his moral letters V 2: “Repellent attire, unkempt hair, slovenly beard, open scorn of silver dishes, a couch on the bare earth, and any other perverted forms of self-display, are […]