Podcast
Dying Every Day (Stoicism in a Year)
Hosted by Perennial Leader Project · EN
Dying Every Day is a podcast by the Perennial Leader Project. Each episode turns a selected passage from Stoic philosophy into a guided meditation designed to help you (and me) contemplate what it means to live a ‘good’ life. Learn more at perennial.substack.com.
44episodes
Episodes
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Day 141: "I commanded myself" | Dying Every Day
Apr 1000:08:13Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 141.“And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.” — Seneca, Moral Letters, 78.2Sit with that.Not die bravely. Not endure bravely. Live bravely.Seneca writes these words to his friend Lucilius from the middle of an illness. Not from recovered health, looking back with the perspective of someone who has already overcome it. From within it—sleepless and worn down by something as mundane as chronic congestion. The kind of suffering that has no grandeur, no battlefield glory, no clear narrative arc. Just a body that keeps failing, in small and draining ways, day after day. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 140: The Instruction No One Wants
Apr 400:11:21Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 140.Happy Easter to everyone celebrating this weekend! Today's meditation sits inside this season deliberately. We are going to spend some time with two men who refused to look away from death: a Roman emperor writing alone in his journal, and a sixth-century monk writing rules for living. Both believed that keeping death close was not pessimism but rather the beginning of wisdom. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 139: Between Idleness and Indulgence - Marcus Aurelius on the Work of Being Human
Mar 2800:07:41Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 139.The alarm goes off. You reach for your phone. Not because you need to—just because it’s there. Nothing urgent. Nothing necessary.And when you finally get up, the pull remains. Not toward stillness—but toward more stimulation. More noise. More distraction.This is the quiet pattern of most days: not crisis, not collapse—just a gradual movement away from what matters. It usually happens in two directions. Idleness and indulgence. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 138: Respond with Reason, Not Retaliation | Dying Every Day
Mar 1300:09:22Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 138.Most conflicts begin with a story we tell ourselves.“They meant to insult me.”“They knew this would hurt.”“They’re trying to undermine me.”The mind fills in motives. In seconds, the event feels personal, intentional, and almost malicious. Once that story takes hold, anger seems justified. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius interrupts that story with a different question. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 137: The Flame You Carry: Musonius Rufus on Exile and Loss
Feb 500:07:29Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 137.The boxes are packed. The room echoes. The keys are handed over. Something stable disappears, and suddenly the life that made sense yesterday no longer exists today.And the question appears, quietly but insistently: Where do I belong now?This is the problem Musonius Rufus addresses when he speaks about exile. And unlike many philosophers, he knew the subject firsthand. A first-century Stoic teacher—and mentor to Epictetus—Musonius was exiled more than once by Roman emperors who distrusted his influence. He lost position, stability, and home. Yet he insisted: exile is not evil. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 136: Memento Mori for Normal People | Dying Every Day
Jan 2200:07:27Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 136.You don’t need a skull on your desk or a Latin motto in your bio to practice memento mori.Montaigne, a sixteenth-century philosopher influenced by the Stoics, treats mortality as a human issue rather than a rare or dramatic event. He removes death from the category of “special occasions” and places it where it truly belongs: within everyday life.Montaigne famously relies on the old saying that “to philosophize is to learn to die.” But his goal isn’t to make you morbid—it’s to make you less influenced by fear. He argues (again and again) that much of what we call “living” is really just avoidance: constant busyness, constant delay, constant mental bargaining. We postpone the hard conversation. We postpone the creative work. We postpone courage. We postpone rest. We even postpone joy.Remembering death is a way of interrupting the postponement. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 135: The Philosophy of Happiness: What Actually Makes Life Good | Dying Every Day
Dec 3000:08:48Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 135.Most people build happiness like a house on sand—on approval, outcomes, comfort, and conditions. It looks solid when the weather is calm. But when circumstances change—as they always do—the foundation gives way.Seneca insists the mistake is not bad luck, but bad architecture. “You ask me what is the foundation of a happy life?” he writes. And his answer is not comfort, success, or favorable fortune. It is internal: “a soul that is strong, upright, under control.”Not a life without trouble—but a soul that can meet trouble without being diminished by it.Happiness, in this Stoic sense, isn't a mood you just fall into when things go well. It's a foundation—a way of constructing a life that doesn't fall apart when circumstances change.--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 134: The (Stoic) Discipline of Delay | Dying Every Day
Dec 2300:08:52Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 134.We've all been there, someone interrupts you mid-sentence. The moment is small, almost forgettable—yet something tightens inside. A warmth in the chest. A quiet bracing in the jaw. The urge to correct, to defend, to be seen as right.It all happens before a single clear thought forms. And already, a choice is waiting to be made.This is the moment Seneca is speaking about. Anger enters the body before it reaches the mind. The breath shortens. The muscles tense up. A story starts to form rapidly: “They disrespected me. This is unfair. I must respond.” Before we fully realize it, the moment feels charged with necessity. Action feels urgent. Silence feels like surrender.--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Transcribe →Day 133: Stoic Fundamentals with Brandon Tumblin | Dying Every Day
Dec 1900:28:47Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeIn this episode of Dying Every Day, I’m joined by my good friend Brandon Tumblin (The Strong Stoic Newsletter) for a casual chat on the fundamentals of Stoicism. We explore practical ways to apply Stoic philosophy in daily life and reflect on life's greater purpose and the Stoic commitment to building a just society.Key TakeawaysVirtue is the only true goodThe dichotomy of controlBuilding a just societyPractical tools for life’s challenges--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
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Day 132: What the Stoics Can Teach Us About Money and Happiness | Dying Every Day
Dec 100:07:45Tap to summarize📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeIn this episode of Dying Every Day, we explore the ancient wisdom behind money, prosperity, and the search for a good life. Drawing on Seneca’s teaching that 'the proper limit to a person’s wealth is first having what is essential, and second, having what is enough,' we examine why chasing more never brings contentment—and why living according to nature frees us from endless craving.With insights from Boethius, who reminds us that fortune’s gifts are always temporary, this meditation invites you to rethink your relationship with money, success, and security. Rather than fearing its loss or worshiping its presence, the Stoics show us how to hold prosperity lightly, use it wisely, and root our peace in the one form of wealth no one can steal: our character, our choices, and our inner clarity.If you’re looking for a deeper, saner way to think about money and happiness—this meditation is for you.--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
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