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The Daily Stoic

Karen Duffy on Using Stoicism to Find Happiness (Even with Chronic Illness) | Nothing Is As Encouraging As This

Ep. 1233
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Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talk to actress Karen Duffy about her new book Wise Up: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother Who's Been Through It, how she got introduced to Stoic Philosophy, her ongoing battle with sarcoidosis, and more.

Karen Duffy was born on May 23, 1962 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, producer, and writer, known for Dumb and Dumber, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Blank Check. In 1996, Duffy was diagnosed with neurosarcoidosis. Her brain and spinal cord were affected, leaving her partially paralyzed. She wrote about her affliction in the humorous 2000 autobiography Model Patient: My Life as an Incurable Wise-Ass. In November 2017 she celebrated the publication of her second book, Backbone: Living with Chronic Pain without Turning into One where she wrote about battling with sarcoidosis for two decades. For Duffy, who can usually only get up three days a week, writing and reading have served as a form of therapy. Her gateway to stoicism was Marcus’s “Meditations,” and her most recent book Wise Up, that was just released this month, uses stoicism as a compass to navigate the world.

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