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- Stoic Happiness Now
Welcome to The Stoa Letter, the newsletter on Stoic theory and practice.
🏛️ Theory
You don’t need anyone else’s permission to be happy.
You don’t need anything to happen to you.
It’s achievable now because happiness is up to you. For the Stoics happiness is found by acting skillfully, with virtue. It is an activity, not an endpoint. That’s why the Roman philosopher Cicero says that wisdom is like dancing or acting – it’s done for its own sake.
The point of happiness isn’t a result. It’s the exercise itself.
Perhaps this in itself is calming. If you’re thinking about your day and about what you need to achieve or about what needs to happen – let such thoughts go. What matters is what you do and how you perform, that is it. Whether you dance well is what matters – how everyone else responds is up to them.
Since happiness is an activity and a craft, it’s something we can approach. It’s possible for you to be happy. My co-founder Michael Tremblay likes to talk about the distinction between performance and training. Excellent artists and athletes recognize the importance of improving their skill through training – but all that training must be evident when they perform. Likewise, practice philosophy every day and then embody it in your life.
What’s holding you back?
🎯 Action
Take steps forward on the path to happiness today, no matter how small. Move in the right direction.
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đź”— Resources
🏛️ Learn more about the Stoic idea of happiness with our new course in the Stoa app, What Is Happiness?
As always, if you truly cannot afford Stoa, but would like to use it, email us at [email protected]
đź’¬ Poetic lines from Cicero on virtue:
The light of a lamp is eclipsed and overÂpowered by the rays of the sun; a drop of honey is lost in the vastness of the Aegean sea; an additional sixpence is nothing amid the wealth of Croesus, or a single step in the journey from here to India. Similarly if the Stoic definition of the End of Goods be accepted, it follows that all the value you set on bodily advantages must be absolutely eclipsed and annihilated by the brilliance and the majesty of virtue.
🦊 Check out the Retell app. Developed by a Jungian Analyst, explore the depths of your psychology by listening to fresh tellings of powerful tales and myths.
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