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PODCAST

John Vespasian

JOHN VESPASIAN is the author of sixteen books, including “When everything fails, try this” (2009), “Rationality is the way to happiness” (2009), “The philosophy of builders” (2010), “The 10 principles of rational living” (2012), “Rational living, rational working” (2013), “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief” (2014), “On becoming unbreakable” (2015), “Thriving in difficult times” (2016), “Causality: Aristotle’s life and ideas” (2024), “Foresight: Schopenhauer’s life and ideas” (2024),

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All Episodes

6:31

Seneca: effectiveness leads to happiness

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/06

I have never been impressed by individuals who preach effectiveness, productivity and efficiency for the sake of it. They devote their efforts to finding faster ways of getting from A to B, without explaining why we should want to get to B in the first place. Seneca took the opposite approach. His ideas about effectiveness are linked to the pursuit of happiness, self-reliance, and peace of mind. Seneca first speaks about the goal, and then describes the path to reach it. For the 59th Letter to

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6:58

Seneca’s ideas on the nature of fate

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/06

The concept of determinism was unknown to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers because they regarded the universe as a combination of forces. Gods could influence our lives, but we can request the succour of other divinities. Our future is not written in stone. Seneca lived in a polytheistic environment in which Roman deities embodied concepts taken from Greece or Egypt. Humans find themselves on the receiving end of divine forces, but those are contradictory, inconstant and chaotic. After some

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6:00

Seneca on how to stop worrying

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/06

Worry is the quintessential wasteful emotion. It doesn’t help improve our life, but consumes large amounts of energy. The more we worry, the less time we have available for productive, constructive action. Seneca had endured worry and anxiety in his mid-twenties, due to a severe respiratory illness. He thought he was going to die, when he had barely started to live. Decades later, when looking back at that period, he had drawn crucial philosophical lessons. I regard the 107th Letter to Lucilius as a

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6:30

Putting Seneca’s anti-worry recipe into practice

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/06

I can understand those who doubt the applicability of Stoic philosophy to today’s problems. Seneca lived a long time ago. How could he possibly foresee the problems we are facing today? Indeed, Seneca’s preoccupations did not resemble ours, but we shouldn’t assume that people in Ancient Rome faced fewer problems than people in our century. Nor that Seneca’s anxiety and worry experience was essentially different from ours. Philosophy is about principles, about immanent truths that, come what may,

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6:25

Putting Seneca’s anti-worry recipe into practice

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

I can understand those who doubt the applicability of Stoic philosophy to today’s problems. Seneca lived a long time ago. How could he possibly foresee the problems we are facing today? Indeed, Seneca’s preoccupations did not resemble ours, but we shouldn’t assume that people in Ancient Rome faced fewer problems than people in our century. Nor that Seneca’s anxiety and worry experience was essentially different from ours. Philosophy is about principles, about immanent truths that, come what may,

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7:41

Seneca’s formula for achieving tranquillity

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

The solution to worry must begin by understanding its cause and how it builds over time. Seneca grasped the nature of preoccupations better than most philosophers in history, but his recommendations need to be adapted to our century. Seneca attributed mental strain to the human tendency to go too far, run too quickly, and expect too much. He viewed peace of mind as the major goal of philosophy, but acknowledged the difficulty of giving up the desires that prevent tranquillity. We achieve

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10:09

Seneca’s advice on setbacks

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

In history, few philosophers have come with workable, solid advice about dealing with setbacks. Socrates (470-399 BC), Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) had given little thought to this matter, concentrating their efforts on logic and epistemology rather than on human psychology. Seneca was the first philosopher in history to come up with a complete prescription for dealing with setbacks in all sorts of circumstances. He took the insights developed by Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC) and

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8:10

Seneca’s advice on dealing with uncertainty

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

Most philosophical doctrines are worthless for dealing with uncertainty. They fail to recognise emerging threats and, when people wake up, it’s too late to do anything. If we want to have a successful, happy life, we need to know what to do exactly in order to deal effectively with uncertainty. Seneca came up with the answer, although he failed to see the implications. He was too busy with his own problems and possessed only a limited grasp of economics. Let us review his insights and complete them

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7:25

Seneca’s mistake in the pursuit of wisdom

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

Seneca laboured intensively in the pursuit of wisdom. He devoted four decades of his life to reflecting and writing about philosophy. I would not question his dedication, but I cannot ignore the rather poor results he achieved. The fact that he ended up killing himself does not speak in his favour. Despite Seneca’s large efforts to acquire wisdom, we should not close our eyes to his errors. He gained important insights on Stoicism and made solid recommendations, but where did he go wrong? Why did he

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8:41

Seneca’s advice on making good decisions

John Vespasian ·

2026/01/02

The best advice provided by Seneca concerns the method for making decisions. His recommendations are condensing decades of philosophical reflection, and a profound knowledge of Ancient Greek and Roman history. Seneca’s advice is straightforward: Keep going in the right direction and do not dwell on difficulties and setbacks. He had seen too many of his friends choose unhealthy, self-defeating lifestyles for the sake of fitting in society. In doing so, those friends of Seneca’s had relinquished their

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8:35

Seneca on handling pessimism

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/18

Amongst all insights gained by Seneca, his recipe for handling pessimism is particularly remarkable. I find it perennial in its validity and universal in its applications. Few philosophers have analysed this issue as profoundly as Seneca, and even fewer have come up with useful recommendations. I can sum up Seneca’s recipe for handling pessimism in one brief metaphor. Instead of adopting a fearful, worrisome view of the world, we should imitate the insouciance of dogs, cats or any other wild

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7:07

Seneca on overcoming doubts and fears

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/18

I pity those who ignore the lessons from antique thinkers because they are leaving remarkable wisdom on the table. It is a sign of deep ignorance to categorise Socrates (470-399 BC), Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) as impractical, and to sustain that their works are no longer worth studying. Curiously enough, Seneca often battled with prior Greek and Roman thinkers; he regarded their conclusions as superficial or incomplete, and claimed for himself the credit of having discovered a

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8:20

Seneca’s advice on staying calm under pressure

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/18

How many people do you know that are able to remain calm under extreme pressure? My guess is that you know very few. I can count those I know with the fingers of one hand. Serenity is not taught in school, and when people most need it, then it is far too late to acquire it. Seneca came up with effective strategies for staying calm under pressure, although, to be fair, I must point out that he built on the ideas of Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC), Cleanthes (330-230 BC) and Chrysippus (279-206 BC). The

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8:10

Seneca’s philosophy explained

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/18

Despite his extensive philosophising, Seneca never showed a systematic approach to philosophy. His Letters to Lucilius employ hundreds of times the word “virtue,” but do not connect it to metaphysics, epistemology, politics, aesthetics or to the Aristotelian tradition. Seneca was a gifted writer, but not a systematic thinker. His goal was to prevent misery more than to promote happiness. In his works, we are led to assume that he knew the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but he does very little to

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8:01

Seneca’s path to serenity

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/18

Amongst all paths to serenity, the one delineated by Seneca is the most straightforward. It rests on a single principle that can be applied to all problems and circumstances that we encounter in life. Seneca’s path to serenity has been proven effective through twenty centuries of experience. In contrast to the recipes given by Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) and Epictetus (55-135 AD), Seneca’s path can be summarised in one word: flexibility. Nowadays, most people regard themselves as flexible, but is

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8:00

Seneca’s teachings on justice

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/16

Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) had no understanding of the concept of justice, and what is even worse, he did not care. As a result, his version of Stoicism lost touch with the social and economic fibre of the Roman Empire. It would have been easy for Seneca to endorse the doctrines of Aristotle (384-322 BC) on justice. In the “Eudemian Ethics” and the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle considered justice a major virtue. A rational man aims at giving each person his due, Aristotle argued. Fairness and justice

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8:00

Seneca on dealing with heartbreak and grief

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/16

Romantic literature defends the thesis that it is better to go through ups and downs in life rather than leading a smooth and peaceful existence. I have my doubts about their exaltation of adventure, but when it comes to real life, none of us is afforded the luxury of perfect smoothness and peace. Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) was conscious of the detrimental role played by heartbreak and grief in human existence. Some men and women bring about their own misery, for instance because they engage in reckless

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7:05

Seneca on how to deal with disappointments

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/16

Disappointments can have dire consequences. I am referring to the victims of lies, deception or treason, to people who find themselves left behind when their rightful expectations crash. I pity those who prove unable to deal with disappointments and get back on their feet because their lives may be shortened. Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) provided excellent advice about how to deal with disappointments, but his insights are spread all over his writings. I regard the “Consolation to Polybius” as particularly

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6:52

Seneca’s letters on motivation

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/16

In our century, motivation seminars have become a sizeable industry. Companies send their employees to those seminars in the hope of increasing sales, productivity and innovation, but it is hard to keep people motivated month after month, especially during periods of economic stagnation. Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) didn’t invent the motivation seminar, but he achieved the same effect by writing letters and essays. If a friend had lost a beloved family member, Seneca would give him advice about how to regain

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6:58

Seneca’s approach to mental clarity

John Vespasian ·

2025/12/16

It is easy to keep a clear mind during a sunny day, when all elements are in our favour: good health, a regular income, old friends that appreciate us, and a loving family around us. It is a different story to keep our wits when things fall apart and keep getting worse. Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) devised the perfect recipe for staying calm and focused in times of trouble. I am convinced that his recipe works because, in history, many people had practised it successfully. I regard this aspect of Seneca’s

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