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What the Moment Asks

September 8, 2026September 7, 2026 B. John 59 Views 0 Comments Leadership, personal growth, Practical Wisdom, Phronesis, judgment, flexibility, discernment, Stoicism

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

The right decision is not always the one written in the policy manual. Years ago, I suspended one of my best employees rather than take the next prescribed step: firing him. The suspension worked, the employee corrected the problem, and only afterward did I learn that company policy did not allow what I had done.

The Greeks called the wisdom needed in uncertain situations phronesis. It is a form of practical wisdom that is shaped by experience, judgment, and a willingness to reconsider what is required. It helped me know when to depart from a policy, when to abandon a carefully designed plan, and when maintaining my health was enough during my mother’s final illness.

In “What the Moment Asks,” I explore the wisdom needed when rules and plans can’t provide the whole answer. It’s a kind of wisdom that listens, accepts correction, and turns experience into lessons we carry forward.

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What We Owe the Worker

September 7, 2026 B. John 63 Views 0 Comments Stoicism, justice, labor rights, common good, unions, Labor Day, dignity of work, Workers

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

People often see Labor Day as just the end of summer, but its history asks us to remember something more. The day began with workers fighting for safer workplaces, better pay, reasonable hours, and the right to organize. Those fights were never only about economics. They were about dignity.

The Stoics didn’t write about labor rights as we know them, but they believed strongly in justice, cooperation, and the common good. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself that people are meant to work together, and that harm to the community eventually harms everyone. This idea matters now, when many workers still have little control over their pay, safety, schedules, or ability to organize.

This Labor Day, let’s consider what Stoicism can still teach us about work, the value of workers, and what we owe each other in a society that says it honors labor.

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The Friends Who Walk With Us

August 30, 2026August 30, 2026 B. John 184 Views 1 Comment Friendship, sympatheia, lifelong friends, grief and friendship, human connection, Gratitude, Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Some friendships stretch across decades. Others arrive for a season, bringing exactly what we need at the time. A little wisdom. A little laughter. A place to rest. A reminder of who we are when life gets noisy.

In The Friends Who Walk With Us, I reflect on the people who have shaped my life, from friends who knew me when I was young to newer friendships formed in this latest season of change. Some are still close. Some have drifted. Some are gone. Yet each left something behind.

The Stoics understood friendship as part of a good life. Seneca wrote about loyal friendship; Marcus Aurelius about our deep connection to one another. Over time, I’ve come to see that friendship does more than comfort us. It changes us. We carry forward the patience, courage, humor, kindness, and wisdom others once gave us.

And maybe that’s part of the quiet duty of friendship. To receive what others give us.

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When Home Changes Hands

August 25, 2026 B. John 168 Views 1 Comment Stoicism, home, Kings Mountain, grief, Family, Memory

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Today, the house I called home for at least 62 years belongs to someone else. The deed has changed hands, yet the rooms still hold holidays, family gatherings, neighborhood friends, and snow days spent sledding down the street. Somewhere in my memory, the treehouse is still waiting in the backyard, and Mom is still inside making space for us.

Grief comes in pieces, and sometimes one of those pieces is a place. Selling the house feels like another small loss, arriving nearly a year after Mom’s death. The house still stands, but I can no longer return to it as home.

Some pieces came with me to Tampa, including Mom’s porch rocker and my grandfather’s mantel clock. The rest must live in memory now. “When Home Changes Hands” is about letting go of a place that helped form me and hoping the next family fills it with the same warmth, safety, and love that Mom gave us.

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A Softer Kind of Courage

August 4, 2026 B. John 199 Views 0 Comments Resilience, Acceptance, Temperance, uncertainty, control, Courage, emotional strength, inner calm, Stoicism

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

What if strength does not always look like pushing harder?

In this new essay, I reflect on the habit of staying busy when financial pressure, uncertainty, and professional pride start to feel heavy. Being active can help us move forward, but it can also keep us from facing what’s already there. A surprising lesson from the human lungs opened another way of thinking about courage, one built around softness, space, and the wisdom to release what we can’t control.

The Stoics never asked us to become rigid. They asked us to see clearly, act where we can, and stop exhausting ourselves against what will not move. A Softer Kind of Courage is about learning when effort serves us, when it becomes avoidance, and why sometimes the bravest thing we can do is pause long enough to breathe.

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True Joy Is a Serious Thing

July 16, 2026 B. John 399 Views 2 Comments nostalgia, Music, attention, true joy, ordinary days, Pictures at an Exhibition, Stoicism, Meaning, Seneca

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

For years, the Latin phrase Res severa est verum gaudium has appeared at the bottom of my personal letterhead. I understood it to mean, “True joy is a serious thing,” and I loved the way it gave joy weight. Only recently did I learn that the words came from Seneca.

That discovery opened the door to a deeper reflection on the difference between happiness and joy. From the grand ending of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to a quiet hillside in Boone, this essay explores the kind of joy that carries memory, beauty, loss, gratitude, and meaning all at once.

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The Decision Was Mine-The Outcome Was Not

June 18, 2026 B. John 417 Views 1 Comment Stoicism, Resilience, Dichotomy of Control, wisdom, regret, decision-making, uncertainty, job loss, self-respect

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Lately, life has been asking for more decisions than usual. Not small ones, but the kind that seem to carry a future inside them. Work. Money. Health insurance. A parent’s care. A funeral. An estate. What to keep. What to let go. What to protect. What to release. In this season, I have learned that decision-making is not only a matter of logic. It also carries emotional weight, especially when the outcome remains uncertain.

In this essay, I reflect on a difficult job-search decision that still brings occasional regret, and how Stoic philosophy helps me think about it more clearly. The Stoics remind us that we can control the care, judgment, and integrity we bring to a decision. We cannot control the outcome. That distinction does not eliminate uncertainty, but it does offer a kind of mercy. Sometimes the best we can do is choose honestly from the place where we stand, then release what was never fully ours to command.

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What We Choose Together

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 B. John 669 Views 1 Comment government, justice, Civic Engagement, common good, Faith250, Citizenship, The New Colossus, public life, Stoicism

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Politics can make otherwise reasonable people turn strange. It can harden conversations, flatten human beings into talking points, and tempt us into anger, contempt, or despair. But avoiding public life entirely is also a moral choice. If government is, as Barney Frank once said, “the things we choose to do together,” then citizenship is one of the places where our values become visible.

This essay reflects on a recent Citizen Engagement training at Hyde Park United Methodist, the beginning of the Faith250 series, and Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” as a way into a larger question: what does a Stoic owe to public life? The answer is not withdrawal. It is disciplined participation, rooted in justice, guided by wisdom, restrained by temperance, and sustained by courage.

The Stoic citizen does not control the whole outcome. But we can still show up with clarity. We can still speak truth without surrendering to hatred. We can still widen the circle, lift a lamp, and choose together as wisely and justly as we can.

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The Tuition of Regret

June 2, 2026 B. John 432 Views 0 Comments Friendship, Stoicism, Resilience, Reflection, personal growth, wisdom, regret, last great days, Memento Mori

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Most of us have regrets, whether we admit them or not. A word spoken too sharply. A kindness withheld. A friendship allowed to drift. A warning sign ignored until it was too late. We may like the idea of living with “no regrets,” but that has always struck me as too clean. If we have lived fully, loved deeply, failed honestly, or hurt someone along the way, regret eventually finds us.

In this essay, I explore regret through the lens of Stoicism, Daniel Pink’s work on The Power of Regret, and my own recent life. I have come to think of regret as life’s tuition. Nobody wants to pay it. Sometimes it is painfully expensive. But if we refuse to learn the lesson, we pay the tuition and never receive the education.

The Stoics did not ask us to deny regret or drown in it. They asked us to examine it, learn from it, make amends where we can, and then lay it down. Regret is not meant to become a permanent home. It is a classroom. The lesson may be to call the friend, offer the apology, act sooner, speak more gently, or create new great days while we still can.

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Viktor Frankl: The Last Human Freedom

May 23, 2026May 23, 2026 B. John 4173 Views 0 Comments Mental Resilience, Resilience, personal growth, Viktor Frankl, philosophy of life, Man’s Search for Meaning, Meaning and Purpose, Stoicism, Grief and Loss

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

This entry is in the series The Stoics

There are seasons in life when the question is no longer whether things are difficult. The difficulty is already there. A parent dies. A career changes unexpectedly. A familiar version of life begins slipping away, and suddenly the future feels less certain than it once did. In those moments, we are left asking a quieter and more important question: What now?

In this essay, I reflect on Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. Through Frankl’s life and philosophy, and through some deeply personal experiences of grief, transition, and rebuilding, I explore the idea that meaning is not something we discover once and hold forever. It is something we continue choosing, step by step, even when life feels unsettled. Read more.

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Hierocles: Expanding the Circle

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 B. John 596 Views 1 Comment Community Engagement, Philosophy in Practice, Social Ethics, Stoicism, personal growth, moral responsibility, Hierocles, Circles of Concern

This entry is in the series Journey Through Stoicism

This entry is in the series The Stoics

Stoicism often begins as a philosophy of the self. What I control. How I respond. How I stay steady when life shifts in ways I didn’t expect. But the Stoics never intended it to stop there. At some point, the question changes from how I manage myself to how I show up for other people.

In this essay, I introduce the Stoic philosopher Hierocles and his idea of expanding circles of concern. It’s a simple image with challenging implications. Through his teaching and my own experience, I explore what it means to move beyond inward discipline and begin living with a broader sense of responsibility. Read more.

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