The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. Over the course of his teachings, the ancient Stoic Epictetus often reminded his students that one shouldn’t undertake the practice of philosophy with the intention of showing off. He realized then that, just as now, people sought renown, recognition, and reputation. In Ancient Greece and Rome, some wanted to be...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. I have a tendency—maybe you have it too—to look back on things that didn’t quite go to plan and chastise myself for not being able to avoid the unwanted outcome. I was recently pulling out of a space in a car park when another car approached from my left. The car stopped to let me out, but didn’t actually leave a...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. The overall ancient Stoic goal was to live according to Nature. Seneca said it should be the motto of anyone who treated Stoicism as their philosophy of life. We know that this essentially has three separate meanings: Accepting that all events that have occurred were forever fated to occur. Successfully performing...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. In his book Courage is Calling, Ryan Holiday offers the following good definition of the Stoic virtue: “ Courage is the management of and the triumph over fear. It’s the decision—in a moment of peril, or day in and day out—to take ownership, to assert agency, over a situation, over yourself, over the fate that...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. The Consolation of Philosophy is a book written as a dialogue between the imprisoned Roman philosopher Boethius and Lady Philosophy, exploring how reason and virtue can provide true happiness amid the misfortunes of life. The consoling idea is essentially this: that if we look at it a certain way, all fortune is...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. When we think of the Stoic virtue of moderation, the first thing that comes to mind is the careful limitation of things that are obviously bad for us when overindulged. For example, we might make efforts to be more temperate in our dietary choices, our use of devices with screens, or our spending habits. But what...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. Italo Svevo’s novel Zeno’s Conscience is presented as a diary written by the main character. The premise of the book is that Zeno’s was asked to keep his memoirs by his psychoanalyst. The doctor decides to publish them out of spite after Zeno quits therapy. Zeno presents himself as introspective and rational, yet...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. By our modern understanding, it seems that anxiety is something we have inherited from our prehistoric ancestors, who needed to be alert to where the next danger might spring from in their environment. A spike of anxiety could be the difference between life and death if it helped a human evade the interests of some...
8 months ago • 2 min read
The Micro Morning Meditations Your 3-part Stoic morning routine. Allan John @whatisstoicism 1. Contemplation 🎧 Listen to today’s audio reflection below. 🔈 Listen Now Good morning. In learning about Stoicism, we’re really trying to absorb its teachings to a great enough extent that we can use them to help us make wiser decisions in daily life. It’s a practical philosophy. It isn’t presented to be merely admired or discussed. We bring our learning to life through practice, through the review of...
8 months ago • 2 min read