Introduction

What if, starting today, you stopped reacting to the world… and started understanding it?
Stoicism isn’t just an idea.
It’s a way of life.

And it begins now.

Welcome, {{username}}.
Today you’re starting a journey, a program designed to introduce you to Stoic philosophy. And I’m truly glad to have you here with me.

But first, let me ask you something:
What brought you here today?
An inner tension that won’t go away?
A need to find calm again?
The desire to see your life more clearly?

You don’t need to answer right now. But keep that question in mind, because everything you’ll read here, everything you’ll practice, it’s for you. For that moment. The one when you’d had enough, and told yourself: “I want better.”

I’m really glad you’re here, because this program, I’m sure of it, will bring you a lot. From the very first lessons, you won’t see the world quite the same way. Something in you will begin to shift. Some of the ideas you held about yourself will start to tremble. Others, about what happens in your everyday life, will be shaken. And little by little, you’ll develop a new way of interpreting your existence.

Not an absolute truth, no one holds that, but a new kind of clarity. A truer way of seeing, and therefore, of living. Living how, exactly?
A little more philosophically.

But don’t go just yet, stay here with me.
We’re not here to write essays or play intellectual games with the works of great thinkers. What we’re after is something else: real lessons for life. We’re going to do it almost like the Stoics of the old times ¹: changing the way we see the world, step by step, gently, just you and me, one idea at a time, one text at a time, gradually.

And if you’re wondering, How can a philosophical theory actually help someone?

I’d answer: By changing the way they see the world, by transforming them from within, by reshaping their mind.

To be a philosopher is, above all, a state of mind.

In this course, I want to teach you how to live like a philosopher, not how to philosophize.
Do you see the difference?
Maybe not yet.
And that’s okay. The upcoming articles will help make it clearer. What I can already tell you is this: for us Stoics, being a philosopher isn’t about knowledge. It’s about being. So, do you need to wear round glasses, a velvet blazer, and look mysterious? Not at all. You can keep your Nikes on and speak your own language if that’s your thing. Because none of it depends on appearances. It all happens somewhere else. Inside. In that inner posture you carry without even realizing it, the one that filters how you act, react, and move through your days. That’s what we’re going to explore. That’s what we’re going to strengthen.

In Athens or Rome, in an age now remembered only through stone ruins and surviving texts, men and women didn’t study philosophy to teach it someday, they studied philosophy to live it. When I realized this myself during my own journey, I thought: couldn’t we, too, men and women of the 21st century, for our own sake, and for the good of the world, learn to live like the ancients did? Like philosophers? Can’t we bring a certain kind of philosophy back to life, between smartphones and Nespresso machines,
between Zoom meetings and sleepless digital nights, a philosophy that doesn’t stay trapped in the margins of a book or buried in lecture halls, but one that seeps into our daily lives, helping us breathe better, choose better, love better, a living philosophy. Demanding, yes, but deeply, profoundly human?

We can,
that’s my mission for you,
and the only promise I’m making by opening this program to you: to help you transform your inner posture, not by piling up ideas, not by collecting quotes, but by living them, embodying them, letting them sink into you until they become part of who you are. Starting today, I want you to rethink what you thought philosophy was. Because no, having a philosophical approach doesn’t mean spending your days writing essays in a lecture hall, or getting lost in the maze of a library, or juggling abstract concepts wrapped in complicated words; having a philosophical life means living like a philosopher.
And to live like a philosopher, at its core, means wanting to improve your character.
It means choosing to live by principles, even if they challenge the ones you’ve followed up until now.

For Epictetus, one of the great voices of the Stoic school, living like a Stoic, not just talking about Stoicism—was essential. Becoming a great theorist, in fact, was a trap he knew many would fall into. He reminded us:
act like a philosopher, that’s the one and only thing that matters:

“The carpenter does not come and say,
'Hear me discourse on carpentry',
but he undertakes a contract and builds a house and so shows that he has acquired the art.
Do you likewise: eat as a man, drink as a man, adorn yourself, marry, get children, live a citizen's life; endure revilings, bear with an inconsiderate brother, bear with a father, a son, a travelling companion.
Show us that you can do this, and then we shall see that you have in truth learnt something from the philosophers.” ²

But—
Stoicism, as you’ll see, isn’t all smooth sailing.
There’s a common trap, one many fall into.
And you’ll want to avoid it.
We’ll dive into that next.