The genre of books with titles “365 Ways...” or “Daily ...” or “...a Day” are generally derivative books, providing a thought for each day of the year. While all such books serve a purpose, the author’s skill in putting them together makes some books better than others.

The recent book by Tim LeBon (with Kasey Pierce) 365 Ways to be More Stoic is somewhat different in the sense that it combines Stoic quotes with actual experiences of Stoic practitioners, and thoughts of the author and other modern Stoics. It is also different because it actually walks you though the core Stoic principles. Thus, these 365 daily meditations on Stoic principles are not unrelated to one another. Rather, the form a cohesive course on basic Stoic principles.

What does the book contain?

The book is basically structured as a course in Stoic ethics, broken into bite-sized pieces. Tim Lebon starts with one of the fundamental principles of Stoicism – the dichotomy of control, and moves to how to be serene, and how to find the right direction.

After having laid the foundation, he tackles the core of Stoicism – the four virutes of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom.

This is followed by three special topics – how to cope with adversity, how to mange anger, and the shortness of life.

The author concludes the book with suggestions for taking our learning to the next level and recaps the ‘big five’ takeaways of the book:

Focus on what you can control and let go of the rest.

Concentrate on your character, which is your royal road to happiness. I

t’s not the events that affect you, it’s your interpretations of events.

See difficulties as Stoic challenges and opportunities.

Stoicism is about doing things, not just accepting things – practice a little Stoicism every day to become the best version of you.

How are the topics structured?

Several days are devoted to each topic mentioned above. What you will find for each day can be different. Some days it could be just Tim (or some expert) cxplaining some Stoic concept in simple terms; some days it could be a modern Stoic describing how a Stoic principle helped them in a real life situation; and on some other days you may find a Stoic quote (either from an ancient or a modern Stoic) with a commentary. The pieces are short, often less than a page, and easy to read and digest.

How is it written?

365 Ways to be More Stoic is written in plain English. There are no complicated sentences to unravel, or difficult to understand words or concepts. What you need to read each day can be done quickly, in under two minutes. So there is no excuse to skip a day or two because we “don’t have time”.

Is the book worth your time?

I think books like this are valuable for many reasons. Most importantly, because they are structured as a course in Stoicism, one should get a good idea of the basic principles of Stoicism by the time one gets through the book. T

he second advantage is, because Stoicism is presented in bite-sized pieces, it is easy to understand and remember.

The third advantage is, because many modern practitioners describe how Stoic principles helped them in real life situations, the reader can understand how these principles can be put to use in real life situations. The ancient Stoics like Epictetus and Seneca also gave examples of how Stoicism worked in real life. However, their examples were from an era unfamiliar to us. Now we can see how Stoic principles can be applied to modern life.

For these reasons, I think the book is definitely worth your time.

What if you are an experienced Stoic practitioner?

So far, I reviewed the book as a practice manual for beginners. But what if you are already an experienced practitioner? In my view this is still a worthwhile book to have in your library, because we all need reminding of basic principles of Stoicism and 365 Ways is a good memory jogger.

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