The What Is Stoicism? Podcast

This episode tackles one of life’s most enduring questions: why do misfortunes so often strike those who seem least deserving of them?

Drawing on Seneca’s On Providence and the poetry of Octavio Paz, we look at suffering not as injustice but as a form of moral training and self-discovery.

Hardship, in this view, isn't a detour from the good life but the very terrain on which character is formed.

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📻 FOR MORE STOIC AUDIO CONTENT

Check out one of my latest daily Micro Morning Meditations here on Substack:

☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: It Does No Good To Rage At Circumstance
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-it-does
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode explores how expectation quietly robs us of the only time we ever truly have: today.

Through a wry story from John O’Donohue and Seneca’s sharp warning about waiting on tomorrow, we see how imagined futures colonize the present and dull our awareness of what’s already here.

Drawing unexpected parallels with Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius, the episode clears away what ultimately doesn’t matter. What remains is an invitation to let go of borrowed worries and actually live the day that’s unfolding.

👇 👇 👇

📻 FOR MORE STOIC AUDIO CONTENT

Check out one of my latest daily Micro Morning Meditations here on Substack:

☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: We Can Rise To Greater Heights
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-we-can-rise
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a quiet pause at the start of the day—a meditation on mornings as gifts rather than obligations.

Drawing on Stoic gratitude and four short poems by Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Rumi, and Frank O’Hara, it invites us to meet the day with attentiveness instead of haste.

Each poem becomes a way of honoring the simple fact of waking up, before goals, worries, or noise rush in. It’s an offering of stillness, meant to be lingered with and returned to, one morning at a time.

👇 👇 👇

📻 FOR MORE STOIC AUDIO CONTENT

Check out one of my latest daily Micro Morning Meditations here on Substack:

☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: We Can Rise To Greater Heights
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-we-can-rise
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode examines a quietly radical insight: that much of our suffering comes not from pain itself, but from our attempt to escape it.

Drawing a line between Alan Watts’ observation and Stoic acceptance, we explore how resistance to reality keeps distress alive long after the moment has passed.

Epictetus helps sharpen the lesson by showing how misplacing “the good” in things we can’t control guarantees frustration and conflict.

👇 👇 👇

📻 FOR MORE STOIC AUDIO CONTENT

Check out one of my latest daily Micro Morning Meditations here on Substack:

☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: We Can Rise To Greater Heights
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-we-can-rise
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode reframes Stoicism not as a quest for unreachable perfection, but as a practice of steady progress.

Drawing on the ancient idea of the prokoptōn—the one who makes progress—we explore why even Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius saw themselves as students rather than sages.

Stoic philosophy, we discover, is less about arriving and more about returning: again and again, to reflection, correction, and effort. To live as a Stoic is simply to desire progress, and to keep good company along the way.

👇 👇 👇

📻 FOR MORE STOIC AUDIO CONTENT

Check out one of my latest daily Micro Morning Meditations here on Substack:

☀️ Micro Morning Meditation: Don’t Always Be Beginning To Live
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/p/micro-morning-meditation-dont-always-94c
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.