Join us in The Stoic Salon (an online group dedicated to reading and writing with the Stoics) where member Sofia Koutlaki will be leading us through Live Like A Stoic: 52 Exercises for Cultivating a Good Life by Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez. 

A practical guide to living like a Stoic with 52 exercises for one year. Photograph: Sofia Koutlaki

What is "Live Like a Stoic?"

"Live Like a Stoic is the essential guide to help us live the good life. It offers a year-long programme of 52 weekly exercises aimed at mastering an array of real-life troubles. Full of practical lessons and sections for journaling, it provides all the tools needed to overcome any life obstacles we might face."

In their introduction Massimo Pigliucci and Gregory Lopez write:

Stoicism is roughly one part theory and nine parts practice. The Stoics were very clear that understanding the philosophy (not that difficult) without putting it to use is a waste of time and energy. Epictetus said, “If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?” […] There is a crucial difference between understanding something, which we can do by reading and reflecting on it, and internalising that same thing, which can only be done with repeated practice. And that is precisely what this book is for.

How this will work: 

• Free to join in (donations welcome)
• Starting on Sunday 30 January in The Stoic Salon which lives online on Slack (you'll receive an invitation and help to navigate our space!)
• We'll work through the book, like a textbook, and complete the readings and exercises. 
• We'll share in the Salon where we can meet each other, report on our progress, discuss ideas, and share our practice. 
• We'll meet on Zoom on the last Saturday of each month at 4 pm GMT London time starting Saturday 26 February (possibility of organising other times to accommodate other time zones). 

Time commitment:

Every Sunday: Read the brief text for the week (2-3 pages) that also sets out the week’s exercise.
Every weekday: Spend 5-10 minutes every evening reflecting and journaling on the exercise and how you applied it to your life during the day.

Optional extension activities:

Daily: A slack channel will be set up for every week where we can interact, and share ideas, musings and formulations.
Every Saturday: A brief check-in in the channel for that week.
On the last Saturday of every month: live check-in meeting on zoom.

Before we start on 30th January:

Just get hold of the book! Live Like a Stoic 

See you in the Stoic Salon for a year of living like a Stoic! 

Introducing your host, Sofia Koutlaki, Ph.D:

I was born and grew up in Athens, a few kilometres north of the Ancient Agora, where philosophy belongs and where Socrates and Zeno of Kitium breathed and taught. I grew up with philosophy in high school and later taught Classical Greek to philosophy students and researchers in Tehran. Since reading Lou Marinoff’s Plato not Prozac I’ve been thinking about the application of philosophy in everyday life, but over the last two years I was drawn specifically to Stoicism.

My academic trajectory traced a line through English literature, the Classics, linguistics and pragmatics. I spent decades observing and writing about everyday life rituals; lived and taught in Tehran, Iran.

After a long ‘wintering’ break, I now explore memoir and life writing, and the influence of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Stoicism, on spiritual progress, wellbeing and on living with long-term health conditions.

I have been part of the vibrant writing community The London Writers’ Salon since March 2020. This experience showed me how much can be done through belonging to a virtual community. I now facilitate a Memoir and Life Writing group in The London Writers’ Salon - check my profile here.

I exciting about starting this year-long practice at the Stoic Salon. Hope you join me!