Strange is the story of Stoicism. Three unconnected events - a shipwreck in Piraeus, a play in Thebes, and the banishment of a rebel in Turkey - connected three unrelated individuals to give birth to a philosophy. It was to endure two thousand years and offer hope and comfort to hundreds of thousands of people along the way. Stoicism had seven formal leaders or "scholarchs," but much of what we know of Stoicism today comes from four Stoics who lived after the all the scholarchs were gone. This is the story of those eleven people. Many others contributed to Stoicism, but to make this brief and...

The Good Life Handbook is a rendering of Enchiridion in plain English. It is a concise summary of the teachings of Epictetus, as transcribed and later summarized by his student Flavius Arrian. The Handbook is a guide to the good life. It answers the question, "How can we be good and live free and happy, no matter what else is happening around us?" Ancient Stoics lived in a time of turmoil under difficult conditions. So, the solutions they found to living free was tested under very stringent conditions. For example, the author of this Handbook was a lame slave who made himself free and happy...

How can we achieve total personal freedom when we have so many obligations and so many demands on our time? Is personal freedom even possible? Yes, it is possible, said the Stoics and gave us a blue print for freedom. The teachings were lost but have been rediscovered in recent times and form the basis of modern cognitive therapy. In his new book, Unshakable Freedom, Dr. Chuck Chakrapani outlines the Stoic secrets for achieving total freedom, no matter who you are and what obstacles you face in life. Using modern examples, Chuck explores how anyone can achieve personal freedom by practicing a...