Dear Stoics,

This week, the world is celebrating World Well-Being Week, and that’s just a perfect excuse to dig a bit deeper into the concept of well-being.

You’ve probably heard the word well-being thrown around a lot, especially in the context of work-life balance or health apps, but it’s worth taking a moment to unpack what it actually means. Well-being is a broad concept that covers how we feel about our lives: our emotional state, physical health, sense of meaning, relationships, and how we cope with hardships. Researchers usually split it into two main streams: hedonic well-being, which is about everyday pleasure and happiness, and eudaimonic well-being, which centers on living a meaningful life.

In the spirit of the occasion and our philosophical roots, this week we’re going back to ancient Greece, because one very famous thinker had a surprisingly practical take on all of this.

Who is Epicurus, and do hedonists drink champagne all the time?

Epicurus of Samos (341–270 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who put happiness at the center of his entire philosophy. Let’s hear it from the man himself: “It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.” That quote pretty much lays the groundwork for his worldview, which was mainly hedonistic.

Now, when most people hear the word hedonism, they picture excess and indulgence. But here’s the thing — Epicureanism is technically a hedonistic philosophy, built on the idea that pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the most important things in life, but Epicurus had a different idea of what that looks like in practice. His version of hedonism was about finding out which pleasures actually lead to lasting happiness and which ones only make our lives worse.

He made a distinction between two kinds of pleasure. Moving pleasures are about satisfying a desire (like eating when you’re hungry), while static pleasures create the content state when you have everything you need in life. And, as you might suspect, the latter are the real goal for Epicurus.

He was also pretty clear about which pleasures are worth pursuing. Mental pleasures (studying, reflection, friendships) are more stable and don’t leave you craving more afterwards. Physical pleasures (luxury, pretty things) can create new desires rather than satisfying old ones, which might be a trap.

Ataraxia: the goal you didn’t know you had

At the heart of Epicurean well-being is a concept called ataraxia — which in Greek means “tranquillity of mind.” For Epicurus, ataraxia came from simplicity, cutting down on unnecessary desires, and focusing on avoiding pain.

There’s a quote attributed to him: “If you want to make someone happy, don’t add to their riches — take away from their desires.” His logic was simple: the less you need to feel good, the easier it is to feel good. And he followed his own advice: Epicurus reportedly lived on very little and said this made any occasional treat feel more luxurious.

How can we use the Epicurean worldview today?

Epicurus was asking the same thing: What do I need to feel good? There are a few things he’d probably suggest:

🕊️ Spend more time with people you like. Epicurus considered friendship one of the most reliable routes to happiness; he claimed it mattered more than most material things.

🕊️ Think about what you’re really chasing. Some of our desires are important to us, and some we’ve just picked up along the way. A lot of dissatisfaction comes from wanting things we don’t really want.

🕊️ Practice being okay with what you already have, even when it’s not perfect. The less your happiness depends on getting something new, the more stable and long-lasting it becomes.

We want to leave you with this thought: well-being is less about what’s happening around you and more about how you relate to it. Which, if you’ve been journaling with Stoic for a while, might already sound familiar. Why not try putting some of these ideas into practice this week? We’d love to know how you go about it!

Yours truly,
The Stoic App Team

P.S. If today’s letter made you curious about philosophy, we have a couple of guided journals on philosophical topics waiting for you in the app. This week, we’re also featuring a Well-Being Check-Up exercise that’s a great fit for the occasion. You’ll find it in the app; give it a try!

We spend a lot of time talking about growth and stepping outside the comfort zone. Safety doesn’t get as much attention, maybe because it might sound a bit boring. But the need to feel safe is one of the most fundamental things driving how we live: it shapes who we let close, what we say yes to, and what we don’t. Sometimes that instinct is right, and sometimes it’s worth questioning.

This week’s theme will help you look at your own relationship with safety a bit more closely. Are you someone who tends to build a lot of security around yourself? Has there been a moment where your sense of what felt safe turned out to be wrong? How much of your daily life is designed around avoiding risk? Every day, right up until Sunday, you’ll get one new journaling prompt in the app on this subject. Come on and reflect with Stoic!