The What Is Stoicism? Podcast

This episode explores the pressure to find identity and fulfillment through work.Derren Brown and the Stoics suggest a different approach: your job can matter without defining who you are, and dissatisfaction does not automatically mean your life is going wrong.Seneca’s reminder that “it does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it” shifts attention toward what remains within our control—our judgment, effort, boundaries, and character.If you’d like to practice these principles, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: Where Do You Find Your Sense of Worth?https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-where-do

This episode reflects on Seneca’s question of whether life is still worth choosing when its beauty and suffering come as a package. In Consolation to Marcia, he sets the marvels of existence—stars, mountains, rivers, forests, love—beside illness, grief, danger, and death, then asks whether we would still agree to enter such a life. His answer is simple: we would.If you’d like to practice these principles, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: You Will Marvel At These Thingshttps://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-you-will

This episode explores Marcus Aurelius’s ten reminders for keeping anger from taking control.His advice centres on perspective: remember that people act from their own beliefs, that we make mistakes too, that we rarely know the full story, and that anger often harms us more than the original offence.If you’d like to practice these principles, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: The Attributes of a Calm and Gentle Personhttps://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-the-attributes

This episode explores the balance between solitude, good company, and independent judgment.Hume and Seneca both saw value in stepping away to think clearly, then returning to relationships that strengthen character and enrich life.The danger is not society itself, but surrendering our judgment to the crowd and mistaking popularity for wisdom.If you’d like to practice these principles, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: Do You Value Both Solitude and Company?https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-do-you-value

This episode explores how remembering mortality can sharpen both attention and freedom.Oliver Burkeman and Alan Watts show why the present matters precisely because it cannot be repeated, while John O’Donohue and Epictetus use the same awareness to put fear, status, and authority into perspective.Life’s brevity asks us to be more present with the people we love and less willing to surrender our inner freedom to temporary pressures. Remembering death, in this sense, is not about withdrawing from life, but entering it more fully.If you’d like to practice these principles, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: Focus on the Joy, Not the Poignancyhttps://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-focus-on

This episode explores the ancient instruction to “know thyself” as the foundation of a philosophical life. Julian, Pigliucci, and Epictetus show that self-knowledge helps us decide what kind of person we want to be—and what must be protected when circumstances become difficult. And Socrates offers the clearest example: his preparation for adversity was simply a lifetime spent safeguarding what was truly up to him.If you’d like to continue the practice, this Micro Morning Meditation will be helpful:☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: This is The Main Point of Philosophyhttps://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-this-is-6fe