10% Happier with Dan Harris Trudging Through Your Own Life? Here's the Stoic Fix | Maria Semple
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Apr 17, 2026 
Maria Semple, novelist and former TV writer behind Where’d You Go, Bernadette, talks Stoicism with sharp humor and candor. She gets into cognitive reframing, a homemade daily Stoic routine, why meditation can spark anxiety, the trap of making happiness depend on outcomes, ambition without clinging, and how fantasy became both a survival tool and creative fuel.
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How Maria Semple Built A Daily Stoic Practice
- Maria Semple got hooked on Stoicism after reading William Irvine and feeling electrified by focusing only on what she can control.
- She then built her own morning program of reading Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius and journaling about character and purpose.
Stoicism Shows Up As Small Stress Shifts
- Stoic practice works quietly when a familiar stressor lands with even slightly less anxiety than it would have a year earlier.
- Maria Semple treats that subtle change as evidence that repeated reframing and control-based thinking have altered her baseline experience.
Build A Morning Routine Around Your Philosophy
- Start the day by restating your life philosophy, choosing virtues to emphasize, clarifying today's purpose, and journaling the application.
- Maria Semple rewrote her 60-page Stoic booklet for years and uses prompts like I get to do this before reading philosophy and starting work.
