Dying Every Day (Stoicism in a Year)
Dying Every Day is a podcast by the Perennial Leader Project.
Perennial Leader Project · J.W. Bertolotti
Show overview
Dying Every Day (Stoicism in a Year) launched in 2025 and has put out 156 episodes in the time since. That works out to roughly 20 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a several-times-a-week cadence.
Episodes typically run under ten minutes — most land between 4 min and 8 min — though episode length varies meaningfully from one episode to the next. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Society & Culture show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 4 days ago, with 21 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2025, with 135 episodes published. Published by J.W. Bertolotti.
From the publisher
Dying Every Day is a podcast by the Perennial Leader Project. Each episode turns a selected passage from Stoic philosophy into a guided meditation designed to help you (and me) contemplate what it means to live a ‘good’ life. Learn more at perennial.substack.com.
Latest Episodes
View all 156 episodesDay 152: Courage in Practice—Cato the Younger on Being Incorruptible | Dying Every Day
Dying Daily: "You Decide What it Means" | Dying Every Day
Day 151: The Unlived Life—Marcus Aurelius and Jung on Becoming Whole | Dying Every Day
Day 150: Stoicism and CBT on Training the Mind | Dying Every Day
Day 149: Plato's Cave and the Cost of Ignorance | Dying Every Day
Day 148: In Defense of the Examined Life | Dying Every Day
Dying Daily: Two Paradoxes, One Truth | Dying Every Day
Day 147: What Are You Running From?—Seneca and Socrates on Solitude | Dying Every Day
Dying Daily: "Before We Knew It Was Passing" | Dying Every Day
Day 146: There Are Two Kinds of Joy—Most People Are Chasing the Wrong One | Dying Every Day
Day 145: Why You React Before You Think—And What to Do About It | Dying Every Day
Bonus: Want Less. Live More. | Dying Every Day
Day 144: What Are You Holding? - Marcus Aurelius on Anger and Attachment | Dying Every Day
Day 143: You Already Know This. So Why Doesn't It Work? | Dying Every Day
Day 142: "The present is all you have" | Dying Every Day
Ep 141Day 141: "I commanded myself" | Dying Every Day
📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 141.“And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.” — Seneca, Moral Letters, 78.2Sit with that.Not die bravely. Not endure bravely. Live bravely.Seneca writes these words to his friend Lucilius from the middle of an illness. Not from recovered health, looking back with the perspective of someone who has already overcome it. From within it—sleepless and worn down by something as mundane as chronic congestion. The kind of suffering that has no grandeur, no battlefield glory, no clear narrative arc. Just a body that keeps failing, in small and draining ways, day after day. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Ep 140Day 140: The Instruction No One Wants
📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 140.Happy Easter to everyone celebrating this weekend! Today's meditation sits inside this season deliberately. We are going to spend some time with two men who refused to look away from death: a Roman emperor writing alone in his journal, and a sixth-century monk writing rules for living. Both believed that keeping death close was not pessimism but rather the beginning of wisdom. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Ep 139Day 139: Between Idleness and Indulgence - Marcus Aurelius on the Work of Being Human
📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 139.The alarm goes off. You reach for your phone. Not because you need to—just because it’s there. Nothing urgent. Nothing necessary.And when you finally get up, the pull remains. Not toward stillness—but toward more stimulation. More noise. More distraction.This is the quiet pattern of most days: not crisis, not collapse—just a gradual movement away from what matters. It usually happens in two directions. Idleness and indulgence. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Ep 138Day 138: Respond with Reason, Not Retaliation | Dying Every Day
📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 138.Most conflicts begin with a story we tell ourselves.“They meant to insult me.”“They knew this would hurt.”“They’re trying to undermine me.”The mind fills in motives. In seconds, the event feels personal, intentional, and almost malicious. Once that story takes hold, anger seems justified. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius interrupts that story with a different question. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts
Ep 137Day 137: The Flame You Carry: Musonius Rufus on Exile and Loss
📮 Want tools for the art of living? Sign up here: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeWelcome back to Dying Every Day. This is Day 137.The boxes are packed. The room echoes. The keys are handed over. Something stable disappears, and suddenly the life that made sense yesterday no longer exists today.And the question appears, quietly but insistently: Where do I belong now?This is the problem Musonius Rufus addresses when he speaks about exile. And unlike many philosophers, he knew the subject firsthand. A first-century Stoic teacher—and mentor to Epictetus—Musonius was exiled more than once by Roman emperors who distrusted his influence. He lost position, stability, and home. Yet he insisted: exile is not evil. [...]--- 🖇️ Stay Connected: Newsletter: https://perennial.substack.com/subscribeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/perennialmeditations/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PerennialMeditations--- 🦉 Additional Resources: Perennial Meditations archive: https://perennial.substack.com/archiveListen to more podcasts: https://www.perennialleader.com/podcasts