If virtue promises to enable us to achieve happiness, freedom from passion, and serenity, then progress towards virtue is surely also progress towards each of these states … if, when someone gets up in the morning … he bathes as a trustworthy person, and eats as a self-respecting person, putting his guiding principles into action in relation to anything he has to deal with, just as a runner does in practising running … this then is the person who is truly making progress; this is the one who hasn’t travelled in vain.
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.4. 4, 20-1
I have participated in Stoic Week every year since 2013, although not always during the specified time frame. I think I first learned about it in April of 2014, and did the previous year’s by myself.
Stoic Week is like a philosophical Lent for me, a call to reorient, reengage, and rededicate myself to philosophy.
While I think that many times it skips over important practical and theoretical underpinnings of our School, it’s an excellent introduction.
Best of luck.
“While I think that many times it skips over important practical and theoretical underpinnings of our School, it’s an excellent introduction.”
Completely agree, I think they should make a Stoic week for beginners and a Stoic week for long-term practicioners ; that would be more stimulating. The Stoic week is a good introduction but not really challenging for those already implying in the system.