Practical JournalBooks about philosophy
Ideas from philosophy about how to live: what matters, what is in your control, and how to face uncertainty.
Books
Enchiridion
The Enchiridion offers a practical guide to Stoic philosophy, teaching readers to distinguish what lies within their control—their thoughts, intentions, and responses—from what does not…
12 ideas to apply
Letters from a Stoic
Seneca's letters to his friend Lucilius offer practical guidance on living well through Stoic philosophy. Written in the first century, they address everyday challenges—fear, anger, grief…
10 ideas to apply
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps, reflects on how prisoners who found meaning in their suffering were more likely to endure. He introduces logotherapy…
10 ideas to apply
Meditations
Meditations is a collection of personal reflections by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, written as private notes to himself. It offers a practical philosophy grounded in Stoic…
11 ideas to apply
Self-Reliance
Emerson argues that true fulfillment comes from trusting your own thoughts and instincts rather than conforming to society's expectations. He challenges readers to live authentically in…
12 ideas to apply
The art of travel
De Botton explores why we travel and what we hope to find, examining how anticipation shapes experience, how landscapes affect our inner lives, and how art teaches us to see places more…
9 ideas to apply
Walden
Walden recounts Thoreau's two-year experiment living alone in a small cabin he built by Walden Pond, where he sought to strip life down to its essentials. Through observations of nature…
12 ideas to apply
When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chödrön offers Buddhist teachings on how to work with life's difficulties rather than resist them. She presents practices for staying present with discomfort, uncertainty, and painful…
10 ideas to apply
Questions to apply
What belief or principle do you say matters to you—and what would it look like to live it more fully, even at some cost?
Where in your life might you be performing virtue or simplicity for an audience, rather than living it for its own sake?
What would it be like to go through a day without blaming yourself or anyone else for what goes wrong?
What idea or perspective helps you stay steady when things feel chaotic?
What might your current circumstances be asking of you, rather than what you wish they would give you?
How might you hold both the difficult realities of your life and a sense of possibility at the same time?
What moment from your past feels especially precious because it can never be repeated?
What are you holding onto as if it will last forever, and what might change if you acknowledged it won't?
What is one thing that has happened to you that you're still resisting, and what might shift if you accepted it as part of your path?
What might you do differently if you fully accepted that your time is limited?
Is there somewhere you're maintaining an appearance that contradicts what you actually think or feel?
Is there a painting, photograph, or piece of writing that changed the way you see a familiar place or kind of landscape?
When you move through your day, do you find yourself asking questions about what you see, or does much of it pass by unnoticed?
Has being somewhere very different ever made you see something about your everyday life in a new light?
What parts of your daily routine feel like penance rather than choice?
What in your life do you accept as fixed reality that might actually be changeable?
What faint but persistent voice in you have you been ignoring because it seems impractical or strange?
What in your circumstances or history might have created depths in you that you haven't fully recognized?
Where might you be serving a system or institution in ways that conflict with what you actually believe?
Where in your life right now are you most trying to create certainty or solid ground?
What are you hoping for or fearing that keeps you from being fully here right now?
What is this present moment, exactly as it is, trying to teach you?
Apply these ideas in Practical Journal
In the Practical Journal app for iPhone, every idea opens onto your own life: write about it, or reflect on it in a conversation that asks questions instead of handing you answers. Your entries stay on your iPhone.
Coming soon to the App Store