Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom

designed to help you in your everyday life.

On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual

lives.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

The secret to happiness.

What is the secret to happiness?

It's not an easy question to answer, and it might seem like the stoics wouldn't have

a good answer either, because it might seem like they didn't have much fun or experience

much happiness.

After all, they wrote repeatedly about the emptiness of chasing money or celebrity.

They reminded themselves that fine wine is just like rotten old grapes.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that their lives were empty and joyless.

By one definition of happiness, in fact, the stoics were some of the happiest people

to ever live.

On a recent episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, we interviewed Gretchen Rubin, one of the

most thought-provoking and influential experts on happiness.

She talked about one of the things that she learned from her former boss, the Supreme

Court's first female justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.

Shortly after Gretchen published the Happiness Project, she asked O'Connor who she'd clerked

for, what was the secret to happiness?

O'Connor replied, the secret to happiness is work worth doing.

...