The below originally appeared in our August 24, 2020 Monday Meditation newsletter. If you wish to sign up to receive our Monday Meditations, please sign up here.  In Donald Robertson’s latest book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, he quotes a story by Aulus Gellius and his work, The Attic Nights. Though the story is used to illustrate our natural bodily responses to events like fear which I discussed here, the story itself has a deeper meaning. As the story goes: A Stoic teacher was traveling the seas. During his travels, the weather took a turn for the worst and the ..read more

As of this writing, the majority of the world is in isolation due to the COVID-19 virus which is sweeping across each continent. This has provided many a unique opportunity: there’s now time to catch up on things that have been put off. For the majority of people in isolation, there is no longer the time devoted to a commute, or to getting ready to go to work, or anything of that nature.  We’re left with extra time which gives us an opportunity to devote some of that spare time to things we have been procrastinating about.  As I discussed a few weeks ago in our Monday Meditation ..read more

This is part 22 in our series of aphorisms by Publilius Syrus who was a big influence on Seneca and his own work. He is quoted by Seneca in two of his letters to Lucilius, On the Value of Advice and On the Philosopher’s Seclusion, both coming from his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, known today as the Letters from a Stoic.   If you have read Seneca’s work before, carefully study how the Syrus aphorisms have influenced him.  Regardless of whether they have a Stoic context or not, they are nonetheless enjoyable.  My favorite aphorisms are in bold. The quotes are attributable t ..read more

This is part 21 in our series of aphorisms by Publilius Syrus who was a big influence on Seneca and his own work. He is quoted by Seneca in two of his letters to Lucilius, On the Value of Advice and On the Philosopher’s Seclusion, both coming from his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, known today as the Letters from a Stoic.   If you have read Seneca’s work before, carefully study how the Syrus aphorisms have influenced him.  Regardless of whether they have a Stoic context or not, they are nonetheless enjoyable.  My favorite aphorisms are in bold ..read more

This is part 20 in our series of aphorisms by Publilius Syrus who was a big influence on Seneca and his own work. He is quoted by Seneca in two of his letters to Lucilius, On the Value of Advice and On the Philosopher’s Seclusion, both coming from his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, known today as the Letters from a Stoic.   If you have read Seneca’s work before, carefully study how the Syrus aphorisms have influenced him.  Regardless of whether they have a Stoic context or not, they are nonetheless enjoyable.  My favorite aphorisms are in bold. The quotes are attributable t ..read more

Since its initial inception in 2018, my goal of offering Simple Stoic Advice was to avoid much of the confusion that at times seems to surround the Stoic texts. Through the series, and especially in 2019, I had spent a majority of my time writing on the blog about Simple Stoic Advice, posting most of the year on Tuesdays and Thursdays with it. But as time has gone on, I have discovered more and more people prefer the newsletters I write and like receiving the advice right in their inbox rather than through the blog. For this reason, I started Monday Meditations which is an advancement on Simpl ..read more

https://link.medium.com/3so8zxcgG2 The post How to Stay Present appeared first on The Stoic Within ..read more

https://medium.com/stoicism-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life/the-first-principles-of-marcus-aurelius-7773ea8ac24f The post The First Principles of Marcus Aurelius appeared first on The Stoic Within ..read more

This is part 19 in our series of aphorisms by Publilius Syrus who was a big influence on Seneca and his own work. He is quoted by Seneca in two of his letters to Lucilius, On the Value of Advice and On the Philosopher’s Seclusion, both coming from his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, known today as the Letters from a Stoic.   If you have read Seneca’s work before, carefully study how the Syrus aphorisms have influenced him.  Regardless of whether they have a Stoic context or not, they are nonetheless enjoyable.  My favorite aphorisms are in bold. The quotes are attributable t ..read more

This is part 18 in our series of aphorisms by Publilius Syrus who was a big influence on Seneca and his own work. He is quoted by Seneca in two of his letters to Lucilius, On the Value of Advice and On the Philosopher’s Seclusion, both coming from his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, known today as the Letters from a Stoic.   If you have read Seneca’s work before, carefully study how the Syrus aphorisms have influenced him.  Regardless of whether they have a Stoic context or not, they are nonetheless enjoyable.  My favorite aphorisms are in bold. The quotes are attributable to the ..read more