Modern Meditations - Stoicism For The Real World

Send us Fan Mail What if the  to peace isn't about controlling your life, but changing your relationship with reality? In this episode, we explore one of the most challenging ideas in Stoicism through a single line from Epictetus: "Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well." At first glance, it sounds like su...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Modern Meditations , we explore Chapter 7 of Epictetus’ Enchiridion,  one of the most vivid and debated analogies in Stoicism. Using the image of a ship, a captain, and a shoreline full of distractions, Epictetus gives a framework for how to live while knowing everything can be taken from you at any moment. But what exactly is the “ship”? Is it death? Fate? Some...

Send us Fan Mail In this New Year’s special, we revisit On the Shortness of Life and come to a deeply encouraging conclusion: You’re not out of time, you’re just wasting it. We break down Seneca’s idea of the Preoccupied vs. the Thrifty Guardian, aka: the person who’s always waiting for something better vs. the person who actually lives their life Justin shares the moment that left him crying in h...

Send us Fan Mail A horse can be proud of its own beauty. But if you’re proud of owning a beautiful horse, you’ve already confused what’s yours with what isn’t. In this episode, we break down Enchiridion 6 and the Stoic warning against borrowed pride, deriving self-worth from status, outcomes, or association. What is actually yours is far narrower. Your judgment, your choices, your discipline, your...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we take on one of Epictetus’ most uncomfortable claims: you’re not disturbed by events, only by the opinions you bring to them.  We unpack his three-tiered model of the mind (the untrained blames others, the novice blames himself, the wise blame no one) and follow the story of the Roman visitor who wants Epictetus to predict his future, only to be told that his fa...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Modern Meditations, Bruce and Justin turn a weekend of budget hotels, dollar rental cars, $12 orange juice, and marathon gels into a masterclass on Stoic expectations. Drawing on Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and M. Scott Peck, they explore how life’s annoyances, whether waiting in line, traffic tailgaters, or bitter cucumbers, become easier to bear when you antic...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the difference between loving deeply and clinging desperately? Epictetus thought the line was thinner than we like to admit. In Enchiridion Chapter 3, he reminds us that every embrace is an embrace of a mortal, every favorite cup is already broken, and every attachment comes with an expiration date stamped by nature. Sounds grim? Not really. It’s actually a roadmap for how...

Send us Fan Mail When Chris Martin paused a Coldplay concert to comment on a kiss-cam couple—“Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy”—he unintentionally exposed more than just awkward chemistry. Days later, both people were out of their jobs and their private lives had become public scandal. But the real story isn’t just the moment it’s what it reveals about desire, aversion, an...

Send us Fan Mail We're onto a brand new book the Enchiridion (or 'the Handbook') this book was written by a former slave to help other reach inner freedom.  For this series we're reading the whole chapter every day and looking to understand the principles from real world experience. This week we explored Epictitus's first rule for inner freedom.  And... had some fun along...

Send us Fan Mail Book 1- 0:0:09 Book 2- 0:17:04 Book 3- 0:31:01 Book 4- 0:47:58 Book 5- 1:14:33 Book 6- 1:40:41 Book 7- 2:08:00 Book 8- 2:34:17 Book 9- 3:00:59 Book 10- 3:27:20 Book 11- 3:54:27 Book 12- 4:18:37

Send us Fan Mail Becoming worthy of the world that created you is a tall order, but luckily Marcus has some tips! Learn about letting go of the past through Justin's experience in High School romance, and Bruce's rare brush with law enforcement (it gets ugly!).  The Poet David Whyte graces us again with some profound quotes on honesty and living in the present that help complement Marcus...

Send us Fan Mail The 12th and final book of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is full of gems. Marcus starts off telling himself how to become worthy of the universe that made him.  "if you shall not be afraid because you must some time cease to live, but if you shall fear never to have begun to live according to nature then you will be a man worthy of the universe which has produced you...&q...

Send us Fan Mail Bruce has found another hero to obsess about, no surprise it's the world's fastest marathoner: Eluid Kipchoge (a stoic adjacent runner.) In today's episode we break down some of the many lessons that can be learned from him through the lens of Marcus's beautiful quote in chapter 11:  "The pythagoreans bid us in the mornings to look to the heavens that we m...

Send us Fan Mail Book 11 of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. 

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever had a friend insist that a quote is relevant, additive, and deep, but you just don't get it? Listen to Bruce try to justify bringing in this quote from "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and see if it resonates with you?  Have you ever wondered what the nature of life is? Marcus says, "A healthy pair of eyes should see everything that can be seen a...

Send us Fan Mail In Book 10 of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reflects on the impermanence of life, the futility of seeking fame, and the importance of living in harmony with nature. He emphasizes resilience in the face of adversity, urging us to accept what we cannot change and focus on our duty. He reminds himself—and us—that external recognition is fleeting, while true fulfillment comes from acti...

Send us Fan Mail This episode took us a year to make... Well, at least it is the byproduct of a year focused on focus and rest for Bruce. If you read between the lines of Meditations Book 9 you'll find an emperor who also shares an obsession with finding ways to increase his focus and find rest.  For instance Marcus says things like:  "You can remove out of the way many useless things am...

Send us Fan Mail As is now Modern Meditations tradition we ended 2024 with reading Seneca’s “On The Shortness of Life” and sat down for a chat about how we did with this year that is not coming back.  We both saw meaningful ways that Stoicism had major impacts in our lives for the better, whether that be through breakups, travel, making major career moves, graduating college or deaths in the famil...

Send us Fan Mail On the 50th episode of Modern Meditations we break our format to give you two audio essays that changed our views on what it means to be a citizen of the world. In Meditations we read, “My city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome; but so far as I am a human being, it is the world." The first, by Bruce, from his trip on Thailand and the lessons he learned from the E...

Send us Fan Mail Experience Stoic literature first-hand by listening directly to the audiobook of Mediations by Marcus Aurelius.  Book 9 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius contains absolute banger quotes such as: 9:20 "It is your duty to leave another man's wrongful act there where it is."  9:27 "When another blames you or hates you, or when men say about you anything injurious,...

Send us Fan Mail Discussing Book 8 of Marcus Aurelius' meditations is not for those unready to face the existential dread of facing themselves and what they were born to do... Are you?  We start with a fun teaser of "What is required of someone to be a Stoic?" Then we dive into the heavy-hitting themes of this book of Meditations with figuring out what you were born for.  Join to an...

Send us Fan Mail Experience Stoic literature first-hand by listening directly to the audiobook of Mediations by Marcus Aurelius.  Book 8 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius contains absolute banger quotes such as: 8:16 "Remember that to change your opinion and to follow him who corrects your error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in your error."  8:22 "Attend to the m...

Send us Fan Mail Happy Halloween! What a perfect time to discuss death! On this spooky holiday we open with Data asking Picard to grant him a gift... mortality. We discuss how we deal with mortality and why it is such a gift to be alive and that we all die.  We go into how we can prepare for our own inevitable death. Part of that is destigmatizing death to not let it be a looming fear, but instead...

Send us Fan Mail Can we just say, "What a chapter?!" Book 7 has many riveting themes, including... Simplicity! Marcus says, "Always bear this in mind; and another thing too, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life." To explore that we compare how much it would cost to live the life of an Instagram Influencer compared to a simple life. The happiest *recorded...

Send us Fan Mail Book 7 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius focuses on Stoic themes like living in harmony with nature, accepting the impermanence of life, and the importance of rationality.  Marcus considers valuable things such as how little is necessary to living a happy life, what the perfection of moral character looks like, and how the more you dig for good within yourself the more it will bub...