The Stoics did not reject worldly pleasures. They rejected the reckless ones. The dangerous, ephemeral ones. The Stoics were not afraid of joy. They just wanted to earn it. Epictetus loved to quote Socrates: “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.”Delight! Not a word you’d expect from Epictetus, but there it is. And to be found in such an unexpected way. Not in material things. Not in a hobby. But in oneself—in improving oneself. We can imagine Marcus Aurelius actually having fun while writing his Meditations, because he was attending to his own development. The same goes for Seneca as he did his crazy philosophical practices, whether it was diving into a freezing fountain at the beginning of the new year or living frugally to prepare himself for changes in fortune. Cato took real pleasure in challenging himself—to walk barefoot and bareheaded, to sleep on the ground with his soldiers, to dress simply and to work hard.And so can you. We can become our own hobby. We can become our own source of satisfaction. The economy determines what we can do professionally, but no one can stop us from working on ourselves personally. Nor can anyone or anything take away the pleasure we earn by getting better day by day. This is just one of the reasons we’ve set up our New Year New You Challenge, which starts in just six days. Now’s your chance to commit to attending to your own improvement in 2020 and to experience the joy and rewards that come from challenging yourself. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was December 25th, 1776. One of the darkest times in the American Revolution. George Washington was planning to cross the Delaware, a desperate move necessitated by a string of setbacks and ebbing support for the revolution across his struggling country. Whose fault was this despair? How had things gone so poorly? Washington wasn’t interested in those questions. As he wrote in a letter to Robert Morris from his headquarters that day, “it is in vain to ruminate upon, or even reflect upon the Authors or Causes of our present Misfortunes.” Instead of looking backwards, Washington said, “we should rather exert ourselves,” meaning they should focus on how they were going to respond. His response was a daring attack on the Hessian Troops in Trenton the next day, which may well have saved his army and the floundering nation. This mindset is part and parcel of the Stoicism that Washington had known and followed all of his life. Looking at events in the calm light of mild philosophy, as he liked to quote from the Stoic philosopher Cato, deciding not to be ruled by his phantasai and instead focusing on what he’d do next. And that’s what we should take a minute to think about this Christmas, whether we’re busy working or taking some time with family or planning out how we’re going to use 2020 for a fresh start. Not what caused our troubles. Not who authored them. Not how much blame they deserve. Those questions are irrelevant distractions—answering them an exercise done only in vain. What matters is how we plan to exert ourselves, how we plan to fix our situation, how we plan to respond to what life has thrown at us. Whether it’s a passive aggressive family member, a struggling business, or a series of bad personal choices, we have the power to decide what we’re going to do next.We can exert ourselves. We can still turn this around. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here we are on Christmas Eve once again. The last couple of years, we took time during this holiday to look at the beautiful symmetry between two of the greatest philosophers to ever live: Jesus and Seneca. It’s incredible to think that these two men were born in the same year, in similarly distant provinces of the Roman empire. Few would have expected the impact that both would have on the world. Nor would Seneca or Jesus have imagined how their journeys would mirror each others’: Both would be immensely popular in their own time, and long after. Both would run afoul of the powerful interests of their time. Both would be forced, in their final moments, to live their teachings—Jesus, on the cross, asking for forgiveness for the people who had wronged him. Seneca as he comforted his friends and family when Nero’s goons came to demand his suicide. Tacitus would note how long ago Seneca had made plans for such an ordeal, writing that “even in the height of his wealth and power he was thinking of his life’s close.” So too had Jesus. Because, despite their brilliance and their blessings, both these men—like us—were mortal. We could spend hours sitting and thinking about the remarkable similarities between Jesus and Seneca...and them and us. As much as life has changed in two thousand years, as unique and unprecedented as their circumstances were, it’s not that different than our lives today. Maybe that’s not a bad thing to spend some time thinking about tonight. Rather than focusing on what presents you’re going to get tomorrow, try to think of what you’re going to do with the gifts you were born with. Instead of thinking about what you’re going to eat, think about all the people without anything at all. Don’t think about your vacation. Think of this present moment, because it’s all you have. Take a minute to sit with some of the ideas from those two great men and what they learned about life and love:“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” —Jesus“Nature bore us related to one another … She instilled in us a mutual love and made us compatible … Let us hold everything in common; we stem from a common source. Our fellowship is very similar to an arch of stones, which would fall apart, if they did not reciprocally support each other.” —Seneca“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” —Jesus“Hecato, says: ‘I can show you a philtre, compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: If you would be loved, love.’ Now there is great pleasure.” —Seneca“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” —Jesus “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” —SenecaWhether you’re a Christian or a Stoic, today is a good day to remember that these ideas are not just something to “believe.” They’re something you do. You have to put the words, whether they are Seneca’s or Jesus’, to work. You have to live them. Not just with your crazy family, not just on Christmas, but every day of your life. Happy Holidays!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a new year is about to begin, many of us are thinking about how we’d like to get healthier, wealthier, and wiser over the next twelve months. Of course, to the Stoics, what really mattered was that final bucket—getting wiser. Understanding yourself and the world better was their primary focus.So if your goal is to get smarter this year, where will you start? For most people, the obvious answer is books. A lot of people begin the year committing to read a certain number of books. I am going to read 50 books this year. I am finally going to finish the entire works of Howard Zinn. Once again, the Stoics might urge caution. They would encourage you to begin this year by committing not to read widely, but read deeply. To dive into a handful of the wisest texts and come to know the authors like you had lived with them. As Seneca advised Lucilius in one of his letters: You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere...And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner...There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction.Today, with 2020 bearing down on us, we are encouraging you to follow that timeless wisdom. Listen to David McCullough’s advice, too. “Study a masterpiece,” he says, “take it apart, study its architecture, its vocabulary, its intent. Underline, make notes in the margins, and after a few years, go back and read it again.” While we’d never claim that The Daily Stoic is a masterpiece, it is one of those books you can return to again and again. It’s designed that way, in fact. (It’s also on sale for $1.99 on Amazon in the US right now, and on sale in the UK as well). Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom is similar. One page a day, every day, for a year. It’s an awesome format, one not used often enough. But you could also break down Seneca’s letters this way—read one letter a day. Or one passage from Marcus each morning. Or one poem from Emily Dickinson each day. Or one page of the Bible each evening before bed. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have divided up the Torah in what they call Parashat ha-Shavua (portion of the week) to be read aloud at synagogue, so that the entire Torah can be cycled through annually. Beautiful. A new year sits before you. Use it wisely. Commit to read deeply and regularly. It will change you over the next fifty two weeks...and then January 1st next year, if you’re still here, you can start again as a new person and be changed once more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In each of the Ask Daily Stoic Q&A episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a fascinating statue of Seneca and Nero done by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Barrón in 1904. Even though it depicts a scene centuries after the fact, it manages to capture the timeless elements of the two men’s characters. Seneca, well into old age, sits with his legs crossed, draped in a beautiful toga but otherwise unadorned. Spread across his lap and onto the simple bench is a document he's written. Maybe it's a speech. Maybe it's a law being debated by the Senate. Maybe it's the text of his essay and warning to Nero, Of Clemency. His fingers point to a spot in the text. His body language is open. He is trying to teach.  He is wisdom embodied, hoping to instill in his young charge the seriousness of the tasks before him. Nero, sitting across from Seneca, is nearly the opposite of his advisor in every way. He is hooded, sitting in a throne-like chair. A fine blanket rests behind him. He's wearing jewelry. His expression is sullen—both fists are clenched and one rests on his temple as if he can't bring himself to pay attention. He is looking down at the ground. His feet are tucked behind him, crossed at the ankles. He knows he should be listening, but he isn't. He'd rather be anywhere else. Soon enough, he is thinking, I won’t have to endure these lectures. Then I’ll be able to do whatever I want. Seneca can clearly see this body language, and yet he proceeds. He proceeded for many years, in fact. Why? Because he hoped some of it—any of it—would get through. Because he knew the stakes were high. Because he knew his job was to try, and he was going to die trying (indeed, he did) to teach Nero to be good. In the end, Seneca made only minimal impact on Nero, a man who was clearly deranged and had little interest in being a good emperor. Seneca lost much of his reputation in the process of working for Nero (criticism which has merit). But another way to see this exchange—and perhaps that’s what Eduardo Barron intended—is that it’s an illustration of a Stoic lesson: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. You control what you do and say, not whether people listen. All a Stoic can do is show up and do our work. And we have to keep showing up, even if we are rebuffed, scorned, or ignored. Because the work is important.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Epictetus tells us the story of a Stoic philosopher named Agrippinus, who, during Nero’s reign, was delivered some awful news one morning: He was exiled. Effective immediately. Agrippinus’s response? “Very well, we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” Meaning: We might as well get this show on the road. No use bemoaning or weeping about it. Hey, is anyone else hungry? That’s how a Stoic responds—they shrug off the emotional weight of even the worst news. They have humor about it. They focus on what they can control and they let go of everything outside of it. Like Agrippinus, like Walker Percy did, like you can if you put in the work. If you practice, if you rehearse, if you steel yourself for the fact that life inevitably will deliver these moments to us. Being exiled. Finding out you got fired. Hearing that your computer just deleted a year of hard work. Being informed that you just lost the election. None of that is fun. It’s often unfair. You can let it crush you. You can fall to your knees and tear out your hair. Or you can shrug it off, and start thinking about lunch. It’s your call.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There's a long-standing connection between philosophy and soldiering. Marcus Aurelius, Cato, Socrates, and many other philosophers were all soldiers. James Stockdale, whose A-4E Skyhawk was shot down over Vietnam, was too. As he recounts: “After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed…And so help me, I whispered to myself: ‘Five years down there, at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.’” It turned out to be seven years in a Vietnamese prison, and he credited Stoicism with saving his life. That’s what Stoicism was built for. It teaches us to—as they say in the military—“embrace the suck” and find security and peace even in the midst of warfare and crisis. Nick Palmisciano, CEO of Ranger Up and former Infantry Officer in the United States Army, discovered Stoicism at a young age and, like Stockdale, credits it with helping him get through some tremendously tough situations. Nick details many of them in our interview with him for DailyStoic.com. The thread, what Stoicism taught him and what he continues to cultivate, is about being comfortable with suffering:Everyone has a breaking point.  For most people, that point is very low, which is why many people never push themselves past their comfort zone. The military demands suffering. It provides you with increased opportunity to suffer at every turn...The guys we revere are the guys that have suffered the most... And the dirty little secret is that everyone has a coward inside them, and if you really want to be tough, and I mean that both physically and mentally, you have to push that coward to the breaking point and then push past it every day. You have to embrace suffering.Epictetus as a slave, Stockdale as a prisoner of war, Zeno shipwrecked—if you go down the list of Stoics, you find story after story of tremendous resilience in the face of tremendous misfortune. You also find that it’s never some innate superpower. It’s trained. “But neither a bull nor a noble-spirited man comes to be what he is all at once,” Epictetus said. “He must undertake hard winter training, and prepare himself.”Nick continues to train in jiu jitsu, not because it will help with combat but “to get my suffering in and push the coward inside me past my breaking point.” That’s our challenge to you today: get out of your comfort zone, push the coward inside you, embrace suffering. Get it on the calendar. Undergo hardship voluntarily. Then, you will be better prepared for life’s involuntary hardships.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go. So it’s easy to point the finger—at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault.And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple—at least according to the Stoics. Because to them, the fault always lies with us. We’re the one who chose to listen to that advice, they’d say. We’re the one who left the outcome up to chance, who didn’t plan for all the contingencies. We’re the one whose expectations set us up to be disappointed.Marcus Aurelius’s rule was: Blame yourself—or blame no one. It’s the other side of the idea we were talking about not long ago, that the only place to look for approval is within yourself. The same goes for disapproval and fault-finding. As soon as you try to get it from other people, you’ve compromised your integrity. You’ve handed over your power. So either don’t blame anyone...or blame yourself. For whatever happens. For everything that happens. Those are the options.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We are what our choices make us. Do we walk the fifteen minutes to work, or do we take an Uber? Hit the snooze button, or get up early? Do we have the difficult conversation, or hide from it? Is good enough really good enough? Will you resolve to be better this year? Or just stay the same?It’s your choice. And what you choose is who you are. The Stoics believed that a beautiful life was the result of beautiful decisions. They also believed that the only way to freedom, to strength, to wisdom, was through continual effort. “Progress is not achieved by luck or accident,” Epictetus said, “but by working on yourself daily.” The question for you today, then—and really, for this upcoming year as well—comes down to one word: When? To quote Epictetus again: How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of and for yourself?Because life is short. The time is now. And gains are cumulative. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results, the further you’ll end up going. For the last two years, we have been doing what we call “challenges” and, on January 1st, we’re starting again with a new challenge for the new year—and for a new you. We’re calling it the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge, and it’s designed to help you do exactly what Epictetus was talking about, and what we have spent so much time talking about in these emails: Take action on becoming the person you know you’re capable of being. It would be easy to let December bleed into January, to let 2020 meander and stultify just as you did with 2019. But that’s not what Stoicism is about. That’s not what you want to be about. Instead, we must seize the moment. We must seek out challenges. That’s why we created this 21-day Stoic challenge: to do just that—to help you create a better life, and reshape a new you here at the start of a new decade that is set to reshape the world. The Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge is a set of 21 actionable challenges, presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. 21 challenges designed to set up potentially life-changing habits for 2020 and beyond, that will help you become the kind of person you know you are capable of being—the kind that can handle any of the uncertainty and difficulty and opportunity that the next year and the next decade are sure to throw at us.Some people are going to hire a personal trainer in January. Others will hire a nutritionist or a life coach. You have the chance to get step-by-step instruction and encouragement from three of the greatest thinkers in history: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus.We’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, and why it works. We’ll give you strategies for maintaining this way of living not just for this coming year, but for your whole life.What is getting rid of one bad habit worth? What would you give to add a new positive way of being into your daily routine? What would you give to be a positive person? And how great would it be to become a part of a community—part of a tribe—of people just like you, struggling and growing and making that satisfying progress towards the kind of personal reinvention that produces the kind of human beings they never knew they could one day be?Well, here’s your chance.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The first Saturday Q&A episode. In each of these episodes, Ryan will answer questions from fans about Stoicism. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In his fascinating biography, The House of Percy, Bertram Wyatt-Brown describes a beautiful scene involving William Alexander Percy, the son of a senator, a poet, and lifelong student of the Stoics. Percy is sitting on a hill looking down into the ruins of an ancient Greek amphitheatre, thinking of Marcus Aurelius.“Though pagan,” Wyatt-Brown writes, “the Stoics recognized the brotherhood of man. The greatest virtue was helping others for one’s own sake and peace of mind as well as theirs. Justice, goodness of heart, duty, courage, and fidelity to fellow creatures, great and lowly, were abstractions requiring no divine authority to sustain them; they were worth pursuing on their own.” This observation contains a lot, so it’s worth unpacking. First, it’s clear that this scene is one of those wonderful moments of sympatheia. William, sitting there by himself in nature, is suddenly reminded of his connection to other people and his role in this larger ecosystem that is the world. We need to seek out these moments because they humble and empower us simultaneously. Next, what does he mean by pagan or divine authority? The author is making an important point about Stoicism. Most religions tell us to be good because God said so. Or they tell us not to be bad because God will punish us. Stoicism is different. While not incompatible with religion, it makes a different case for virtue: A person who lives selfishly will not go to hell. They will live in hell. And both these points are related to the final and most important part: We are all connected to each other, and to help others is to help ourselves. We are obligated to serve and to be of service. The Percys are a great example of a family that did this. Despite being wealthy, they served in politics. Despite being white and from Mississippi, they fought to keep the Klan out of their hometown. When the Flood of 1927 hit, the Percys saved thousands of lives. When William’s cousin died, he adopted his three second cousins. Because the family was duty-bound. Because they believed they were part of a brotherhood of man. Because it was worth doing for its own sake. And so it goes for us.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Although we know nearly nothing about Seneca’s family life or how his children turned out, we know at least that he gave good advice. We know that as a wealthy, powerful, and famous man, the deck was stacked against him. These are corrosive, corrupting influences, particularly on children. Yet it was clearly quite important to Seneca to raise a normal kid—and to encourage everyone else to do the same thing. Below is some advice from Seneca on parenting:Spur them to conceive of great things for themselves, but curb them from arrogance.Let them enjoy some comforts of wealth without indulging their every whim.Show them how to get up when they fall—don’t pick them right up.Instruct them, don’t just punish them.Praise them, but not excessively.Allow some relaxation without fostering laziness.Reward them when quiet what was denied them when they cried for it.Expose them to good role models.Seneca understood that parenting is a balancing act. You want your kids to be confident but not obnoxious. To feel special but not entitled. Comfortable but not spoiled. You want them to be happy, but also know how to handle disappointment and rejection. To not have to struggle but know how to overcome. To be self-sufficient, but also know how to be a team player. To be carefree, but also value hard work. For us, that means we must always keep in mind the end goal, not just what will make this moment easier for them or for you. Assess each situation and strike a balance so your kid will too.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are lots of ways to spot a foolish person. They say dumb things. They make unforced errors. They make the same unforced error over and over again. You tend to recognize one when you see one. Seneca, quoting Epicurus, had a good test: “The fool, with all his other faults, has this also—he is always getting ready to live.” Indeed, just about the most foolish thing you can hear—coming from someone else or coming out of your own mouth—are the words: “Some day, I’ll…” “When I’m older I hope to…” “I’m not ready right now but…” “If I ever finish this, then I’ll...”What makes you think you have that luxury? What makes you think you’ll have the time? Forget about issues of self-worth and status and dues-paying for a moment. From a practical perspective, you can’t get ready for something that’s already here. And that’s what life is. It’s right now. Right this second. Don’t be a fool. Live today. Be the best you can be now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is something strange you find when you study the early Stoics. Not Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus, but the Stoics who influenced them. The names you don’t hear much: Cleanthes. Posidonius. Panaetius. Aristo. Antipater. Chrysippus. What you find—beside the fact that these were living, breathing, human beings with all sorts of interesting experiences—is that you start to notice just how big a role they played in the shaping of the classic Stoic texts we know and love.For instance, the interesting analogy about how a philosopher should be like a wrestler—a fighter dug in for sudden attacks—that Marcus Aurelius famously makes in Meditations? That actually originates from Panaetius, a Stoic philosopher from the 2nd century BCE that Marcus studied. There are allusions to the insights of Aristo and Antipater and Chryssippus in Seneca. A deep dive into Epictetus shows not only how he was influenced by Zeno, but reveals how many unattributed quotations of Epictetus appear in Marcus Aurelius!So what is this philosophy then? Just a bunch of people repeating the same old insights? Hardly. Remember, Stoicism is a practice, not merely a set of principles. The act of sitting down and journaling—writing and rewriting—about ideas from the earlier Stoics is a kind of meditative experience. It’s almost like a prayer. It’s what transforms an epigram into a mantra...and then later into action when it counts. Besides, have we not learned from music how powerful and creative the art of remixing can be? It’s in this writing and rewriting that each successive generation of Stoics was able to come up with new insights and further refine the philosophy (a tradition that continues today with writers all over the world). Blaise Pascal, whose book Pensées is eerily similar in tone and style and content to Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, puts it well when he writes, “Let no one say that I have said nothing new, the arrangement of the material is new. In playing tennis both players use the same ball, but one plays it better." Today, your job is to sit down and do some writing—using this old material. Sit down with The Daily Stoic Journal. Sit down on Twitter and put some quotes in your own language. Riff on the ideas with your kids. Write a reminder to yourself on your phone. Pick up the ball and play with it. Practice the philosophy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Reputation is a powerful thing. The desire to keep it, maintain it, to not betray it, was a force that made someone like Cato unstoppable. On the other hand, the desire to make it—to have a name that people know—can just as easily be a kind of deceiving, seductive distraction. Marcus Aurelius warned against chasing fame, because of how worthless it was and how easily it could be achieved by ignoble means. Yet that’s precisely what motivates most of us: We want to do great things so people will think we’re great, so they’ll remember us for forever. Blaise Pascal sounds like he was channeling Marcus and the Stoics when he pointed out that we “do not care about our reputation in towns where we are only passing through.” Isn’t that what life is? Aren’t we all just passing through? Some of us for a little longer than others, of course, but none of us are truly here to stay. Realizing that what other people think about you is not important—because we’re all just passing through—is freeing. It’s not a hall pass for bad behavior. On the contrary, it frees you to do the right thing regardless of the criticism that may come from it. It frees you from the petty squabbles and gossip of the town you’re in and lets you think about what really matters. In the end, we suspect that’s what Cato was actually doing. That people happened to respect him in his own time, that his unbending moral strength earned him fame that survived far beyond his life—that was not the end goal. The goal was doing the right thing and not giving a damn what other people thought. If they’d showered him with stones instead of praise, he’d have kept doing what needed to be done. Because what should he care—what should you care—of the opinions of people in a town you’re only passing through?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here’s an interesting exercise. Pull up a Spotify playlist for hits from the ‘90s. Or turn on a satellite radio station built around that time. As you listen to the songs, note how many you recognize and how many you’ve never heard of. Now go back an era or two and do the same thing for the ‘80s or for the second wave of classic rock. Then do it again for real oldies. As you keep going backwards, the familiarity will fall further and further away until you’ve heard none of the “hit” songs before—and all the “famous” names sound strange or even made up. The point of this stroll through music history is not nostalgia or even about discovering some forgotten greats. It’s a reminder of how ephemeral we all are. How fleeting fame and life is. As Marcus Aurelius writes:Words once in common use now sound archaic. And the names of the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus...Scipio and Cato...Augustus...Hadrian and Antoninus and..everything fades so quickly, turns into legend and soon oblivion covers it.He points out something that is worth noting about the music we just flipped through as well: The names we no longer recognize are the most famous ones, the ones who shone for at least a few minutes. The vast majority of people, of art that’s made, of events that happen, are “unknown, unasked-for" and don’t even get this. They were not even blips, they were less than blips. The lesson from this, as with so many Stoic lessons, is humility. We are not nearly as important as we think we are—and even if we are important, the passage of time is an unforgiving leveler. The other lesson is about priorities. If all fame is fleeting, if even the most accomplished and most influential—the writers of the biggest hits and the owners of the greatest songs of their time—are eventually forgotten, why chase it? Why let it make you miserable—why let getting it make you miserable, or not having it make you miserable?Why not focus on right now? On living the life you have as best you can?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a famous exchange—which we wrote about a while back—Agrippinus explained why he was spurning an invitation to attend some banquet being put on by Nero. Not only was he spurning it, he said, but he had not even considered associating with such a madman. A fellow philosopher, the one who had felt inclined to attend, asked for an explanation. Agrippinus responded with an interesting analogy. He said that most people see themselves like threads in a garment—they see it as their job to match the other threads in color and style. They want to blend in, so the fabric will match. But Agrippinus did not want to blend in. “I want to be the red,” he said, “that small and brilliant portion which causes the rest to appear comely and beautiful…’Be like the majority of people?’ And if I do that, how shall I any longer be the red?” He wanted to be red even if it meant being beheaded or exiled.  Because he felt it was right. Because he wouldn’t be anything other than his true self. It’s like Mark Twain’s line: When we find ourselves on the side of the majority, we should pause and reflect. Because it means we might be going along with the mob. We might have turned off our own mind. We might be muting our true colors.Our job as philosophers, as thinkers, as citizens, is not to go along to get along. We are not just another replaceable thread in an otherwise unremarkable garment. Our job is to stand up. To stand out. To speak the truth. To never blend in. And in so doing, we make the most beautiful contribution of all.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One question you hear the comedian Marc Maron ask a lot of standups and actors at the beginning of his interviews is: Who did you come up with? Who were your guys? By that he means, who were the comedians starting out around the same time as you? Who was there at the beginning with you?It’s interesting how almost every one of Maron’s guests seems to be part of some kind of a cohort of fellow comedians or performers who cut their teeth in the same clubs or the same theaters at the same time. You can look at their careers and see how many of them got big breaks around the same time, and developed their careers along similar lines. There might have been some cutthroat competition between them, but as the years passed, it became clear that they all shared a common origin, almost as if they were part of the same graduation class. In a way, this is just another illustration of that Stoic concept of sympatheia. That, whether we know it or not, we’re all on some kind of team, all part of some collective that is much bigger than us. It’s easy to lose sight of this, of course, when we are fighting for the #1 spot or trying to get noticed, but that’s only because each of us is naturally self-obsessed. But anyone with some distance, anyone in the audience or in the press, can’t miss it: We are shaping the scene we are in, just as it is shaping us. Our fate is bound up with other people—and their gain is not our loss. Quite the contrary, we each help each other—and help the world—when we excel and fulfill our potential. We are all part of a scene. We all came up—and are coming up—with a cohort. Even the truly innovative mavericks did (Elon Musk, for instance, comes from the so-called PayPal Mafia). Try to spend some time thinking about that today. What scene are you in? Who else is in your graduating class? Who are your guys? Eventually you’ll come to appreciate being a part of it, and, with time, you’ll understand and be grateful to have shared the stage with these folks. Everyone does. That’s guaranteed. What’s not promised are the lazy, nostalgia filled days of old age. So why wait to appreciate them? Why let decades pass when you could do it right now? When you could thank them now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nobody cared more about statues than the Greeks and the Romans. In fact, the only reason we know what many of the Stoics looked like is because they were preserved in marble by sculptors many thousands of years ago. It wasn’t just philosophers who knew the value of statues. Leaders put up statues in nearly every important place within the realms that they ruled so that we might look upon and be inspired by the deeds and the principles of the great men and women they honored.In 175 AD, Marcus Aurelius was honored with the creation of a bronze statue depicting him atop a horse addressing his troops, perhaps following some great victory on the battlefield. It was placed in the heart of Rome on the Capitoline Hill. Bronze equestrian statues like this one were commonly created to laud the most notable Romans, yet this is the only statue of a pre-Christian emperor to survive to the modern era. While dozens of other statues were being melted down to make coins or destroyed by revolutionaries, this statue remained on display, through the centuries. In fact, it was Michelangelo who, at the height of his powers as an artist, designed a new base for it in the Piazza del Campidoglio, where it stands to this day. And we are all the better for it. Because each generation needs guidance. We need to be called to honor the greatness of our past, or in the case of some monuments, reminded of the failures and mistakes that humanity has made. We need to see—in tangible form—the principles that we as a people hold dear, that we aspire to mirror in our own livesIn 1863, the English writer Matthew Arnold wrote about why the endurance of the symbols of Marcus Aurelius are so important, and what a grand tradition it remains.Long after his death, his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide Roman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain and Italy, bear witness, not to the intimates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the earth.A nation—an era—is judged by the monuments it erects just as a home is judged by the mementos and family artifacts hung on its walls and displayed on its shelves. So that’s the question for the world and for you as an individual today: What statues are you putting up? Who are you honoring? Whose presence is inspiring you to follow in their example? What is calling you to be the person you know you can be? ———We’ve just released our newest Daily Stoic creation to help you keep in mind the example of Marcus Aurelius: a limited edition bust, modeled after the that inspired The Obstacle is the Way. This hand-sculpted bust is individually hand-numbered with a beautiful verdigris finish. It’s mounted on a black marble base and comes wrapped in a green velour pouch along with a signed certificate of authenticity. We’ve only had the sculptor produce a limited quantity from his original clay model, so if you’re interested, the time is now to check it out at DailyStoic.com/Statue, where we’ve included a great video showing how the bust was made. We also conducted an interview with the bust’s sculptor, E. S. Schubert. Not only is Schubert an amazing sculptor who has crafted statues for cities and stadiums, he is also a passionate student of Stoicism. You canSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The viciousness of the mob is one of the darker themes in Roman history. There was the angry crowd that tore Saturninus to pieces during Marius’s time. There were the grieving, angry citizens who, riled up by Mark Antony’s funeral oration after the death of Caesar, murdered the poet Cinna just because he had the same name as one of the conspirators. It’s scary what a group of people can do when the unwritten rules of civil society break down. There is perhaps no better day to think about this than Black Friday in America. Fresh off the gratitude of Thanksgiving, we decide to reward ourselves by greedily gorging on stuff. It is hard to think of a day whose entire purpose sits in greater conflict with the Stoic notion of sympatheia. The same people who were previously sitting peacefully with their family are now ready to engage in hand-to-hand combat over a deal on a flat screen television. Instead of enjoying the time off, people have been lined up for hours in the cold to buy more and more crap they don’t actually need, at lower and lower prices. Not to replace the crap they bought last Black Friday, mind you, but to add to the pile. The only cost Black Friday shoppers don’t mind paying for these savings? Yelling matches, countless traffic accidents, and the collateral damage of retail employees being trampled to death. (There’s a website that tallies ‘Black Friday Death Counts’ if you’re really curious.)As Marcus wrote in Meditations, “What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee.” It’s hard to argue that Black Friday is good for anyone or anything but the bottom line of big business. So instead of following the masses on a shopping spree—and possibly a killing spree—it would be nice if you spent this morning thinking about the bigger picture—the biggest picture.We should be humane to each other because we are all human, all part of the same larger body. We spring from the same soil and will each return to it alike one day. When we forget this, it not only hurts other people—makes countless millions mourn—but it hurts us as well.“Revere the gods, and look after each other,” Marcus Aurelius reminds us. “Life is short—the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.” That is what sympatheia is about. That’s what Oikeiôsis, affinity for your fellow humans, is about. We should live that every day, frankly, but we should be especially mindful of it today. As the exact opposite of a Black Friday deal, we’re selling our Sympatheia coins at full price at Daily Stoic, until Monday December 2nd 6am. BUT, if you buy one, we’ll give you another one free to give to a friend, family member, or colleague who could benefit from it.As we begin the holiday season, we hope you keep this concept in mind when you’re dealing with difficult in-laws, travel delays, or crowds and long lines. Don’t let the modern spirit of materialism and selfishness infect you. Instead, we must all focus on reminders that we are not alone, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that there is a greater good to which we all owe a duty, above and beyond our own selfish coSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this day of American Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to make time for thanks, to actively think about that word that has become almost cliché in wellness circles: gratitude. But what is gratitude? Some people think of it as being thankful for all the good things you have in your life. Others see it as the act of acknowledging what people have done for you or what you appreciate about others. While the Stoics would have agreed that was all important, they practiced a slightly different form of gratitude. It was more inclusive and counterintuitive. It wasn’t just about being grateful for the good, but for all of life. “Convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods,” was how Marcus Aurelius put it, “that things are good and always will be.” The first key word there is everything. The other key word is convince. Meaning: you have to tell yourself that it’s all good, even the so-called “bad stuff.” Is it possible to be grateful for that nine-hour travel delay that has you sleeping on a bench in the airport? Is it possible to be grateful for your father’s affair that tore your family apart, and which now means you’re celebrating two Thanksgivings in two houses because your parents can’t be in the same room together? Or that dark period you went through in college, when your grades fell to pieces and you thought about killing yourself? It’s not easy to be grateful for any of this, but it is possible. In the Discourses, Epictetus says, “It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance, and a sense of gratitude.” On the surface, much of what we’re upset about or wish hadn’t occurred is so objectionable that gratitude seems impossible. But if we can zoom out for that more complete view, understanding and appreciation can emerge. First off, you’re alive. That’s the silver lining of every shitty situation and should not be forgotten. But second, everything that has happened and is happening is bringing you to where you are. It’s contributing to the person you have become. And that’s a good thing. This understanding, Epictetus said, helps you see the world in full color—in the color of gratitude. The Stoics believed that we should feel gratitude for all the people and events that form our lives. We shouldn’t just be thankful for the gifts we receive, and our relationships with friends and family. We should also be aware of and grateful for the setbacks and annoyances. For the difficult coworkers and the nagging in-laws, for the stress they put on us and whatever other difficulties we might be experiencing. Why? Because it’s all of those things, interconnected and dependent on each other, that made you who and what you are today. It is only by seeing the totality of things, good and bad, that you gain the understanding necessary to be truly grateful.It could be that terrible relationship that imploded spectacularly, but which led to you meeting the love of your life. It could even be the passing of a relative, something that caused you great sadness but which also spurred you to build stronger relationships with your loved ones. All of these things are sad, and they may not even lead to a happy ending—but they still define the course of your life, and it wouldn’t be you sitting there right now without them.As you gather around your family and friends this Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other celebration you might partake in, take the time to appreciate the moment and give thanks for all the obvious and bountSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Queen Elizabeth I was a remarkable woman. She was uncommon and special is so many ways. She was believed to have known nine languages. She was considered one of the best educated women of her time. And she presided over many English battle victories. And yet in one other way, she was incredibly common—not unlike so many of us: She basically refused to think of her own mortality. Maybe she was too afraid. Maybe she thought she’d live forever. Either way, she refused to plan for a successor in any form. She never got married, despite numerous courtships. She never had children. If she had been an ordinary person, this would have been her prerogative, but she wasn’t. A queen without an heir puts the entire kingdom at risk. A ruler who doesn’t consider what comes after them is bequeathing chaos and carnage on their subjects.Sir Walter Raleigh, writing late in Queen Elizabeth’s life, saw this happening. He saw the Queen getting older and her options disappearing, as she grew older and grey. She was, he said, “a lady whom time has surprised.” What a great phrase! Because it describes so many of us. It’s the CEO who can’t groom the next generation of leadership in the company. It’s the partier whose twenties have turned into their thirties and can’t see how pathetic they look. It’s the grandma or grandpa who shudders at that word—old—who, me? I’m not old! We have to remember, as Seneca told us, that old age and death aren’t this thing that lies off in the distant future. It’s a process that’s happening to us always and everywhere. We cannot let time surprise us. We must be thinking of it always. That’s how we make sure we are living for today, that we are leaving nothing unfinished or unresolved. We have a duty to ourselves and others, Seneca said, to live each day like a complete life. To keep our affairs in order because we have no idea what’s going to happen or how much time we will be given. Don’t delay. Don’t deny. Don’t be surprised. Do your duty. Face your fears...and your mortality. Today and always.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the most inspiring themes in the history of Stoicism is how the Stoics responded to tyrants and to adversity. There was Cato, refusing to roll over and just let Caesar destroy the Republic to which Cato had dedicated his life. There was Thrasea defying Nero, “Nero can kill me, but he cannot harm me.” There was Agrippinus shrugging off exile, refusing to kowtow to anyone who wanted him to bow to the regime. There was Marcus Aurelius, who stayed in Rome even as it was ravaged by the plague, who served with great dedication even when his health failed in later years. There was James Stockdale in that prison camp in Vietnam, unbreakable, defiant, dignified despite all his powerlessness.  This is what Stoicism is about. It’s that iron backbone. That strength of conviction. The sense of duty and purpose that makes it impossible to do anything but stand up, that will never accept less than it’s due. People with that power end up changing the world, regardless of how entrenched or overwhelming their enemies are. Martin Luther King Jr. captured it perfectly. “Whenever men and women straighten their backs up,” he said, “they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.” That’s the question for you today and for all of us fighting for something, trying to make change. Are we going to straighten up and stand up? Or are we going to bend and give in? Are we going to let them ride us or are we going to refuse to roll over?We have the power. Let’s use it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Some people will love you. Some people will hate you. One day, Marcus Aurelius wrote, the crowd will cheer and worship you. Other days they’ll hit you with brickbats and hate. You get a lucky break sometimes—get more credit and attention than you deserve. Other times you’ll get held to an impossibly unfair standard. They’ll build you up, and then tear you down—and act like it was your fault you got way up there in the first place. They’ll criticize you in public and privately tell you it’s all for show.There will be good years and bad years. Times when the cards come our way, times when the dice keep coming up snake eyes. That’s just how it is. That’s just life.The key, Marcus Aurelius said, is assent to all of it. Accept the good stuff without arrogance, he wrote in Meditations. Let the bad stuff go with indifference. Amor fati. Take it all in stride, whether it’s undeserved heat or slobbering praise. Let none of it affect you, take none of it personally.Just keep moving. Keep doing your work. Keep being you. That’s the way of the Stoic. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We talk about the importance of positive thinking. Of making sure we are surrounded by good vibes and good energy. Of cutting out the negative influences of social media and the news. Of looking for the good in everything we see.And, of course, that is important. But it can also be dangerous. Because it sets us up to be disappointed, even horrified, when our bubble is pierced. When we are forced to come face to face with the fact that the world is not a positive place. There are things that go bump in the night. There are bad people and tragic events. That’s why Epictetus’s advice—in his version of premeditatio malorum—was to do the opposite. “Set before your eyes every day death and exile and everything else that looks terrible,” he said, “especially death. Then you will never have any mean thought or be too keen on anything.” You will also never be disappointed, you will never have your illusions shattered or your expectations gone unmet. In fact, if you keep this darkness in mind, you might just be surprised by all the light you find in the world. You’ll be grateful for each day you wake up, still alive. You’ll appreciate each moment you’re not in exile. You’ll be glad each time Murphy’s Law turns out to be wrong. Indeed, just as there is no hot without cold, there is no light without dark. Today, spend some time with the dark. Become familiar with it, set it before your eyes, so that you do not mistake it for blankness and set yourself up, once you walk out of it, for the light to be blinding.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is so much on our plate. We have emails to respond to. Calls to make. There is that meeting in a couple hours. The folks we met with yesterday are waiting on an answer or a decision we promised we’d make. Twitter beckons. So do our hopes and dreams. And yet as many directions as we find ourselves pulled in, it’s safe to assume that Marcus Aurelius was under even more tension. Make no mistake: The ancient world was not some quiet, peaceful place. It too was filled with crises and distractions, gossip, and ambitious goal-setting. All the temptations we face today have their analogs in the past—plus things were scarier, deadlier, and more precarious. So we should listen to the command that Marcus gave himself after one of those trying days, when he was struggling to stay focused. “Concentrate every minute like a Roman— like a man—” he wrote, “on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.”And he wasn’t just chiding himself to do some impossible thing. There was a method to this concentration, he said. What was it? Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life. (That’s the power of Memento Mori). The key, Marcus said, was to not let your emotions override your mind and to give yourself a strong purpose (aimlessness is an enabler of distraction). You can do that. You have the power to concentrate like a Roman. You can know how to do this thing in front of you. You can treat it right. And most important, you should. Because it may well be the last thing you do in your life.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The cycle would be almost humorous by now if it were not so sad. Politicians who have sat idly by, not doing their jobs to address the vexing, pressing problems of our time, rush in when tragedy strikes. Whether it’s a natural disaster that caught a city off guard, or another senseless mass shooting, these folks are there—or rather are there on Twitter—to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims. Then, of course, the crowd shoots back, “That’s not enough!”Let us unravel this according to the Stoics. First, there’s nothing wrong with thoughts and prayers, per se, particularly if they are heartfelt. However, they aren’t remotely sufficient to solve most political or social problems. And yet, yelling at the people offering them is its own hollow form of virtue signaling too. While the Stoics did talk about the importance of acceptance and about our limited control of the world around us, they would reject this modern rejection of our own agency. They would be disappointed in our learned helplessness. The obstacles of life—be they in politics or the environment or the actions of evil doers—require action. They require effort. They require that we seize what’s in our control to affect change and improve the status quo. When Rome’s borders were threatened, Marcus Aurelius didn’t simply send his prayers to the citizens who were killed. No, he led an army to defend them. When a plague struck Rome, he didn’t flee the city and then come back to speak at funerals. He braved the terrible conditions, doing everything he could to stop the dying. Whether he was successful or not is almost secondary to the fact that he at least tried. Because that’s what a Stoic does. We take action. We organize. We vote. We try to solve problems. We try to prevent problems from happening again. And if the leaders we’ve elected aren’t going to help with that—meaning they’re part of the problem themselves—we don’t just yell or complain about it and demand that they do better...we set about solving for that too. We do better. We make sure they do too.No one is coming to save us. But we can save ourselves.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We all want more peace, right? More stillness. The quiet confidence that comes from being on the right path, as Seneca described it, and not being distracted by all those which crisscross ours. Well, how do you get that? It’s simple, Marcus Aurelius wrote. Stop caring what other people think. Stop caring what they do. Stop caring what they say.All that matters, he writes, is what you do. Everything else is beyond your concern. You can let it all go. You can ignore it entirely. We find tranquility when we stop stressing about things we cannot control, whose influence we are impotent to constrain. We find tranquility when we narrow our focus, when we look inward, when we look in the mirror. When we still the uncontrollable passions in our heads, hearts, and bodies.Stillness is the key to a better life. The bad news is that there is only one way to get it. The good news is that it’s easy. You just have to stop. Stop caring what they think or say or do. Start caring deeply about what you do.Stop...and start now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a famous moment in the history of Sparta, when they were threatened with invasion by Phillip, King of Macedon. Phillip, whose son was Alexander the Great, demanded the submission of the Spartans. It would be better to submit to him now, he said, because "If I conquer your city, I will destroy you all.The Spartans’ reply to this was just one word: “If.”They were not the kind of people who gave up easily, even in the face of incredible odds, because they believed in their own capabilities. If they had even a 1% chance of persevering, they were willing to take it. They weren’t going to lay down their arms without a fight—you were going to have to come and take them.While the Spartans had little time or interest in philosophy, we should see the Stoics as the heirs to this tradition of tenacity and determination. Cato’s impassioned resistance against Caesar was a man giving everything he had to a cause most people thought was lost—and he very nearly won. George Washington and the Stoic founding fathers of America fought a similar cause against the greatest army in the world, and did win. James Stockdale looked at his captors at that prison camp in Vietnam and said, “If.” He said, “You’re going to have to beat me.” And as close as they came at times, they never managed to. Stoicism is not resignation. It is, in fact, a philosophy that shines brightest when the outlook is darkest. It makes that distinction between what is not in our control and what is in our control for a reason—so we can focus 100% of our energy on what is in our control...even if the odds of success are low, even when everyone else thinks the smarter move is submission. If it’s humanly possible, Marcus Aurelius said, know that you can do it. If there is a 1% chance, that means there is a chance. It means you can do it. So do it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It makes sense that we avoid pain. We don’t want to cause it and we don’t want to feel it. We’d rather life be easy. This makes sense—at least in the short term.But the Stoics knew that in the long term, such an attitude made you weak, made you soft. The NASCAR driver and student of Stoicism, Brad Keselowski, recently talked about how Stoicism has taught him to take whatever is hardest or most difficult in his life and “double down and appreciate it.” Because it’s teaching you something. Because it’s making you stronger. Too many people run from pain, he said, but that’s the wrong way to do it. “Over time,” he said, “you start to realize that pain is your body flushing out weakness.”In Seneca’s writing, we see that theme come up time and time again: Don’t be afraid of challenges. They are preparing you for an uncertain future. In Marcus Aurelius we see him look even at physical pain—we get the sense that Marcus Aurelius had some chronic injuries or illnesses—as a kind of crucible that was forging him into being a stronger person. You can endure this, he would say over and over again. You can get through this. You will get through this. Of course, we should not be glib about pain or misfortune in life, but we can take all of these ideas and apply them to what we face today. There’s no need to turn away from what comes our way. Instead, we can embrace it. We can double down and appreciate what we had to do—even though it’s hard. Amor Fati. We can endure. We can flush weakness out. And we can become better and stronger for it. Whatever it is. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Time and time again, we hear the Stoics tell us to say what is right, to do what is right, to be comfortable swimming upstream or rejecting the choices of the mob. Marcus Aurelius said this. Seneca said it. Cato said it. Nassim Taleb says it still today.What usually goes unsaid alongside these inspiring calls—whether it’s “If you see fraud, say fraud” or “If it’s not right do not do it, if it’s not true do not say it”—is anything about the consequences. Because while history admires whistleblowers and men and women of principles, their contemporaries often have the opposite reaction. Because speaking the truth and standing up for what’s right is an implicit rebuke of the status quo. It challenges people’s identities. It indicts them for not doing the sameThis is important to know and to constantly remind oneself of. It’s almost like you need to do a premeditatio malorum for what happens when you commit to being a good and honest and courageous person. Because it’s not going to be easy. People are not going to throw you a parade. They’re much more likely to throw brickbats. Or insults.But you have to do what you think is right, and, as Marcus Aurelius said, treat the rest like it doesn’t matter. Who cares if they unsubscribe from your emails? Who cares if they report you? Or try to take away your sponsors? Try to run against you in a primary election? Or leave nasty comments? Or try to bully you? Because the truth is that none of these things matter. Or at least, they don’t matter more than your duty.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you ask most people to describe a philosopher, they end up painting a picture of somebody who works at Harvard and wears a lot of wool and tweed and corduroy. Maybe they’ll describe somebody from ancient history, dressed in a toga, talking about big ideas, oblivious to the everyday happenings around them. It’s an understandable impulse, because philosophy can seem so distant and the people who practice it somehow above or apart from the rest of us. This is a mistake. It’s not only not what philosophy is supposed to be, but it’s also historically inaccurate. As Blaise Pascal explains, writing some five hundred years ago, "We always picture Plato and Aristotle wearing long academic gowns, but they were ordinary decent people like everyone else, who enjoyed a laugh with their friends.” Pascal took pains to point out that the books they wrote were written for pleasure and enjoyment—they were not stuffy, pretentious documents meant to intimidate people. On the contrary, Aristotle and Plato and Socrates were writing to help people, to pass along what they had learned. The same was true for the Stoics. Why is Meditations so straightforward and easy to read? It’s because Marcus was writing to help himself. Why does Epictetus seem so conversational? It’s because that’s literally what he was doing. He didn’t “write” anything—what survives to us are essentially transcripts of conversations he had with students. Think about Seneca writing his letters. There was a real person on both sides of that communique, a writer and a recipient. True friends trying to help each other by being clear, not confusing. Philosophers aren’t different from us or better than us. They are us. The best philosophers are regular people with a passion for self-improvement, with a love for their fellow human beings struggling in the real world. There might be Harvard professors who fit that bill, but too many of them don’t. It’s critical that you ignore them and don’t let them lead you astray (or intimidate you). Philosophy isn’t about books and big words and theories and complicated metaphysics. It’s about getting better, in a real practical sense. It’s about realizing your potential—intellectually, morally, spiritually. As Blaise Pascal concluded, the writing that Aristotle and Plato did was actually the “least philosophical and least serious part of their lives: the most philosophical was living simply and without fuss." Beautiful. Let that inspire you. And try to follow in its example today and always.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcus Aurelius said that pain either affects the body or the soul. What’s the difference? “The soul can choose not to be affected, preserving its own serenity, its own tranquillity. All our decisions, urges, desires, aversions lie within. No evil can touch them.” Pierre Hadot’s metaphor for this was the “inner citadel.” Hadot said that Marcus worked to create a soul, a core, an inner fortress that fate, chaos, hysterics, vice, and outside influences could never penetrate or break down. Ada Palmer—a historian, professor, and novelist—knows the importance of building an inner citadel. In addition to the tummults of academia, publishing, and constant deadlines, Ada is also disabled and suffers from chronic pain. She says that, sounding like Hadot, “Stoicism is about achieving interior tranquillity.” Hadot said that Marcus wrote to himself to strengthen the walls of his citadel, to achieve interior tranquility. In our interview with Ada for DailyStoic.com, we asked her about how she does it:I use a variety of different techniques to battle the gloom, "morbid thinking," and other mental effects of chronic pain. I self-monitor carefully, keeping an inner lookout for when I find myself dwelling on something that's upsetting me, and I have a sort of triage of responses. I ask myself (A) can I find an actionable solution to the problem? If not (B) can I get myself to stop worrying about the problem and let go? Can I laugh at the problem? Can I ask myself whether this will really matter in a year or five years?  Sometimes that alone can break the spell, but if it doesn't this is where I find the maxims, especially the vivid images, often help. One of my favorites is the stoic image of life as being like being a guest at a banquet.  Many great platters are being passed around for you to take from, but occasionally one arrives already empty, everyone else has already taken it all.  It's easy to be angry, and it is unfair, but the food wasn't yours to begin with, it was a gift from your host, and you didn't really need it, there is plenty of other food. Sometimes just thinking about that can make me less upset by something. It's amazing how that kind of reframing, zooming out, or changing perspective can sometimes dispel the stormy thoughts that are really what are causing one's unhappiness. Cultivating your inner citadel doesn’t mean reaching a point where one is immune to life’s disturbances. It’s about having your systems in place, your battle-tested line of defense, ready to fend them off when they inevitably do show up. For Marcus, it was journaling. For Ada, it’s stopping, reframing, changing perspectives. What is it for you?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marcus Aurelius was clearly torn about his fellow man. He was loving and kind and spoke repeatedly of serving the common good. He was also clearly frustrated and disappointed with the flaws of the people around him. Like many great men, he had trouble understanding that not everyone had his gifts, not all of them were capable of what he was capable of. You can see in Meditations how he wrestled with these feelings. In the opening passage, he talks about just how obnoxious and annoying (and awful) the people he was likely to meet in the course of the upcoming day. And then, just as you think it can’t get any more depressing and dark, he turns around and reminds himself that they’re doing the best they can, and that it’s not their fault that they have been cut off from truth. In the passage that inspired The Obstacle is the Way, Marcus is less forgiving. He talks about how the people who obstruct or bother us are “irrelevant”—how we can shut our minds off to them. It’s a theme that comes up a lot: People are a problem. People are weak. Push them away. You get the sense that he would have been hard to work for, hard to have as your father, hard to please—even for talented and committed people. If only Marcus Aurelius could have heard the (fictional) advice from his adopted grandfather, Hadrian, that Marguerite Yourcenar writes into her prize-winning book Memoirs of Hadrian. “Our great mistake,” she has Hadrian say, “is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.” How much happier Marcus would have been had he been more able to see the good in people, and how much better a leader he could have been had he leaned into their strengths rather than disdained their weaknesses. Each of us would benefit from that advice as well. We have to focus on what we can learn from other people. We have to focus on what is special and unique about them instead of zeroing in on the ways they are not as good as us. We have to be forgiving and patient, kind and appreciative. We have to engage with what they bring to the table, not lament the things they take from it. Then we have to work to make those people around us better...not write them off as hopeless and broken.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the most haunting moments in all of literature is the moment when King Lear hits rock bottom. He has destroyed his kingdom. He has lost his family. He has lost his sanity. He says to Gloucester as they stand on a cliff:“They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.”In short, all the illusions of the king have been shattered, his ego destroyed. Everything he had worked for was gone, and all that was left was the inescapable conclusion that it was his fault. He had believed the flatterers and let power go to his head. Then, after unbelievable folly and meanness, it all came crashing down.This temptation to believe that we are everything, that we are immune to the constraints or flaws of other people is the source of so much pain and misery in the world. Pain for the believers and for the bystanders who become its collateral damage. Which is why the Stoics—particularly the ones who found themselves in positions of leadership—spent so much time working on their egos. Marcus Aurelius actively practiced his philosophy so that he would not be corrupted by his absolute power. Seneca wrote essays to Nero to try to steer the young man away from ego, to tell him: You are not everything. You have to stay sane and sober. It didn’t always work, but he tried. Ego is the enemy. Of what we’re trying to accomplish. Of the people we’d like to be. Of relationships. Of kindness. Of the ‘objectivity’ and rational thought that Stoicism prizes. We must remember this always, even as others puff us up or success accumulates around us. We are not everything. We are ordinary. We are mortal. We are not exempt.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For nearly three decades, Tom Morris, one of the world's top public philosophers and pioneering business thinkers, has been on a mission to bring philosophy back to the center of daily life. Travelling the globe working with world-class business executives, athletes, coaches, administrators, and entrepreneurs, Tom realized that, regardless of the field or industry, everyone wanted the same thing: advice about excellence. So began his search to find the universal conditions for success and the skills or arts involved to achieve it. “My claim,” Tom said in our interview with him for DailyStoic.com, “is that for success in any challenge, the great practical philosophers have taught me that we need what I call The 7 Cs of Success”:A clear CONCEPTION of what we want, a vivid vision, a goal clearly imagined.A strong CONFIDENCE that we can attain that goal.A focused CONCENTRATION on what it takes to reach our goal.A stubborn CONSISTENCY in pursuing our vision.An emotional COMMITMENT to the importance of what we're doing.A good CHARACTER to guide us and keep us on a proper course.A CAPACITY TO ENJOY the process along the way“You can find all seven of these ideas in the writings of Seneca or Marcus Aurelius,” Tom added. “The great thinkers understood greatness.” You’ll notice that all of Tom’s 7 Cs of Success fall under what the Stoics called the dichotomy of control. Basically, we can control some things and can’t control others—and we should focus on what we can control. The Stoics knew that in the chaos of life, as in sports, fixating on things we can’t control is not a recipe for success, but for great agony and despair. The road to success—winning championship titles in sports, becoming a bestselling writer, or a successful entrepreneur— is just that: a road. And just like you travel along a road in steps, excellence is a matter of steps. Excelling at this one, then the next, and then the one after that. Today, spend some time with Tom’s 7 Cs of Success. Where are you along the road? What can you do to make the next step? Focus on that—the things you do control. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The little known Stoic philosopher Agrippinus was apparently the king of one-liners. There was the time he was informed he’d been exiled and responded, “Very well, we shall take our lunch in Aricia.” There was another time, we are told by Epictetus, that Agrippinus was asked by a fellow philosopher whether or not he should attend some banquet put on by the abominable Nero. Agrippinus told the man he should go. But why, the man asked? That’s when Agrippinus got him with another one of his brilliant barbs: Because you were even thinking about it. For me, Agrippinus said, it’s not even a question. In a way, this is a pretty good—albeit cavalier—test of the progress we are making with our character. Hemming and hawing about the right thing and then doing the right thing—now obviously that’s better than doing the wrong thing. But what we should be shooting for is developing the kind of moral compass that’s so clear and strong that we don’t even have to do that. Where doing wrong isn’t even a question. Where the right thing is just obvious. Just do the right thing, Marcus Aurelius said. Don’t think about it. Go with your gut. The rest can be sorted out later.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re busy. We’re tired. We have so much to do. We had dreams once, sure, but they slowly deflated. The mortgage, the kids, the job, watching TV, that’s how we fill our days. It’s a slow downward spiral that Bruce Springsteen sang about in Racing in the Street: Some guys they just give up livingAnd start dying little by little, piece by pieceIf you’re not that guy, you at least know him or her. They’re a mainstay of the modern world. Overworked, undersexed, overtired, and underappreciated. Facebook is to blame right? The capitalist pigs are responsible, yeah? It’s because of the 24-hour news cycle.  Certainly none of those things help, but the truth is that this is a timeless problem. It goes back much further than Bruce or even this century. Because Seneca spoke about those guys too. “How much time has been lost to groundless anguish,” he writes, “greedy desire, the charms of society; how little is left to you from your own store of time.” Wake up, he says. Stop sleepwalking. Stop giving away what you can never get back. That’s from his essay The Shortness of Life, where he tried to get the reader—as Bruce Springsteen does in his best songs—to “realize that you're dying before your time."We only get one life. Once time ticks by, it never comes back. Yes, each of us will die. That’s a fact. But for the moment, we’re alive. Which is why we have to live. Which is why we have to protect our time, our dreams, our spirit. We can’t give it up piece by piece. We can’t start dying before our time. We have to live. Now. While we still can. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Marcus Aurelius’s time, Roman religion was a hodgepodge of different rituals and ideas, which were evident in Marcus’s own behavior. For instance, he deified his wife and his stepfather Antoninius, but at the same time spoke repeatedly about how this life we are living is all there is. It goes without saying that he also rejected the teachings of the Christians, who he thought of—as a product of his time—as threats to the authority of the empire, but it also turns out that the Stoics and the Christians held beliefs that were much closer than Marcus understood. Particularly as it related to hell.As far as we know, the Stoics didn’t believe in hell. Their writings make only a few vague allusions to the idea of an afterlife. Similarly, the idea of “hell” is not as clear in Christianity as conventional wisdom might dictate. Nowhere in the Bible is there anything close to the hell that believers talk about today—a place where bad people and nonbelievers go after they die to be tortured and punished for their sins for all eternity. Even the word “hell,” which varies from translation to translation, appears only a few times, with different contextual meanings in each case. One of the most frequent occurrences is as the word “Gehenna,” which was an actual, literal place—though admittedly not a good one (there is some thought that it was Jerusalem’s trash dump).What might Jesus and the Christians have been speaking of when they spoke of hell? Perhaps it was the same thing the Stoics spoke of—not a place that we go after we die, but a place far too many people are in right now, based on how they’ve chosen to live. Marcus Aurelius didn’t warn against indulging and cheating and lying and stealing because he thought you’d be punished for it later. He knew these “pleasures” would produce tortures in the here and now. As Rob Bell, the pastor and author, writes in his beautiful book Love Wins:“People choose to live in their own hells all the time. We do it every time we isolate ourselves, give the cold shoulder to someone who has slighted us, every time we hide knives in our words, every time we harden our hearts in defiance of what we know to be the loving, good, and right thing to do.” Whatever you believe—whether you’re closer to Marcus Aurelius or a follower of Jesus—there is something to learn from where these two schools converge. It’s a matter of faith whether hell exists after death. It is a fact that it exists here on earth—in Gehenna and in our souls. If there is hell in the after life, whether or not you go there will be God’s decision. The hell that exists for certain right here and now, you can choose to take up residence in or move as far away from as you possibly can.So what’s it going to be?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There was a Stoic named Diotimus who messed up. Like really messed up. Sometime around the turn of the first century BC, he committed what can only be described as an unjustifiable crime. He forged dozens and dozens of letters that framed the rival philosopher Epicurus as a sinful glutton and depraved maniac. It was an act of despicable philosophical slander, and Diotimus was quickly brought up on charges.Some accounts say he was executed for this crime, but that seems unlikely. Chances are he was exiled or fined, which is actually more interesting: What does a Stoic do after they really screw up? What can they do?Perhaps we can take a cue from the name of the podcast hosted by Lance Armstrong, another guy who has made big mistakes. What does Lance call his podcast? He calls it The Forward. Because that’s really the only thing you can do in life: go forward. That’s what Lance is trying to do with his life now. Move on and move forward, as best he can. When you do something wrong, you can’t go back and undo it. When you hurt someone, you can apologize, you can say you didn’t mean to, but you can’t undo the harm, you can’t unring the bell. Ultimately, you can only move forward—and try to make it right by learning from it and not doing it again. The same principle applies when you fall short of your own standards, and you let yourself down. Big or small, crimes and mistakes exist only in the past. They can no longer be touched. All you can do is decide what happens next. All you can decide is how you will write the rest of the story. You can move forward, building on the lessons of your mistake; or you can stay rooted in place, trying futilely to reach back into the past to erase what has been done. This is how cover-ups happen. This is how mistakes get compounded. Lance can tell you about those too—which were probably his biggest mistakes when it was all said and done.We don’t know what Diotimus did next, unfortunately, or how his story ended. Hopefully, he moved forward and never did anything like it again. All we can do is try to learn from his failings, and to improve ourselves accordingly.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s easy to whitewash history, to look back at a group of people who did an incredible thing and assume they were all on the same page when it happened. We forget the egos and the personality flaws. We forget their struggles and infighting.The Founding Fathers of America are a great example of this. They can seem like a unified group of wise superhumans—beyond the passions or tempers that rule our lives—but, of course, they were anything but. According to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams was the kind of guy who “always governed by the feeling of the moment,” and given his fragile, insecure personality, this did not serve him well. Think of Jefferson himself, whose lust and hypocrisy not only tolerated slavery, but allowed him to justify owning a human being, Sally Jennings, he claimed to love. He was also a bit of a coward, and an ungrateful political intriguer. Hamilton was so ruled by his passions he not only cheated on his wife, but got himself killed in a duel that a wiser, more self-controlled man would have been able to avoid.The list goes on and on. Although George Washington was by no means a perfect human being—he too owned slaves—he found a way to rise above these other men, not just on the battlefield but in everyday life. He lived by a system. By a personal code. He put duty above all else. He would have rather died than betray his sense of honor. It was through this that he managed to achieve greatness far beyond what Adams or Jefferson or Hamilton could even approach. It’s why he is probably the greatest American, if not the greatest statesman, to ever live.That’s what Stoicism is about and what it helps us do. We are all flawed people. We have tempers. We have egos. We have selfish desires. What we need is a system, a code that helps us triumph over them. It gives us a Cato—to quote Seneca’s line and to mention Washington’s hero—to model ourselves after. Something to check our behavior against, to guide us in the moments where emotion or temptation would lead us astray.All of the Founders were great in their own way, all of them contributed to the founding of a nation. But Washington got further, did more—he conquered the British as well as himself. He was in his own power, and would have been even had his army faltered and he had been captured. Which founder will you be? Whose example will you follow? Will you be great, or can you aspire to be more like the greatest?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s a fitting warning about man’s nature that in the Old Testament, God would command his followers, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” and to resist the pull of the multitude when they persecute someone on false charges, only to find thousands of years later that this would be the fate of the man who claimed to be his sonThis idea that the judgements of the mob were dangerous and must be avoided is a timeless theme in the ancient world—and one that appears both in the Bible and in the writings of the Stoics. Only a few generations before Jesus, the Stoic Rutilius Rufus was brought up on and convicted of obviously false charges by corrupt political enemies. Around the same time, in one of the first signs that the norms of the Roman Republic were collapsing, a mob gathered and stoned to death a man named Saturninus. Marius, the consul who encouraged Rufus’s demise, was powerless to stop the mob justice he had ridden to power on. By Jesus’s time, the mob was a political force in the Roman empire. It could be pandered to. Riled up. Used to do one’s dirty work. It was a feared and ominous presence. Just a few decades after the mob killed Jesus, Seneca would write that “consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith. Certainly, the greater the mob with which we mingle, the greater the danger.” Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is filled with admonishments to ignore the jeers and the cheers of the mob, to think for himself, to avoid the violent spectacles they demanded in the form of gladiatorial games, to do the right thing even if everyone else is insisting (or getting away with) the wrong thing.If only this advice was not relevant today. Unfortunately it is. We have a mob which sways our culture—online and in real life. These are people who attend speeches on college campuses with the intent of disrupting and shutting them down. These are people who march with tiki torches and chant slurs and epithets. These are people who use social media to bully and intimidate. These are people who shout for violence and demand retribution. These are people who are incapable of mercy or empathy or forgiveness. It would be nice if their numbers were few—but they are not. They are legion, and they exist on both sides of the political spectrum (indeed, they often hold contradictory views on various issues and share the same nihilism whether they are extreme left or right). In some cases, they are often the majority view and their pressure costs people their jobs, forces them into hiding, or convinces them to keep silent. They claim to be protecting our way of life...as they destroy it before our eyes. Which is why today and every day we should heed these Stoic (and Biblical) reminders to avoid the mob, to think for ourselves and to stand up for what’s right, especially when the mob is doing evil. When you find yourself on the side of the mob, pause and reflect. Ignore their venom. Speak out.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Roman elite were constantly living beyond their means. Leaders like Cicero lived lavishly—he owned something like nine different villas at the same time. Other Romans believed the path to political power lay in essentially bribing the public with extravagant games and public spectacles. Julius Caesar was constantly spending money he didn’t have to impress people he didn’t respect. Even the Roman empire itself was constantly overspending, leaving it to more austere emperors like Marcus Aurelius to pay down the country’s debts by selling off palace furnishings. Seneca, for his part, wrote eloquently about the meaningless of wealth and the importance of the simple life. And yet, money is partly what attracted him to Nero’s service. In 13 years working for a man who was clearly deranged and evil, Seneca became one of Rome’s richest men. This afforded him an incredible lifestyle. He threw enormous parties. He accumulated huge land holdings and impressive estates. But his taste for the finer things meant swallowing a bitter moral pill...and eventually, this association cost him his reputation and his life. If only Seneca and these other spendthrift Romans could have listened to the simple advice in Cato the Elder’s On Agriculture, one of the oldest works in the entire Latin language. There, Cato—the great grandfather of the Stoic Cato the Younger—talks about the importance of managing your money and your tastes. “A farm is like a man,” he wrote, “however great the income, if there is extravagance but little is left.” His advice to the aspiring farmer is to build a house within their means—to put your money into your farm, into something that generates returns, not something that impresses your neighbors or assuages your ego. It was better, he said, to cultivate the selling habit, not the buying habit. Selling meant you were making, buying meant you were consuming. How does a business succeed? By things going out the door, not in the door. It’s easy to acquire. It’s hard to say no. It’s tough to develop limits and to figure out what enough is. But like Cato said and Seneca’s fate painfully illustrates, if you can’t do that, eventually there will be nothing left and nowhere to go.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine, one day you’re king and the next day you’re not. Literally. That's the story of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was made King of Naples and Spain, only to be forced to flee in exile after the reversal of his family’s destiny. Napoleon was sent to an island prison, but Joseph had to move to New Jersey, where suddenly he was just another regular person—rich, sure, but far from royalty. The same went for Achille Murat, the son of Napoleon’s brother-in-law. Once the heir-in-waiting for the kingdom of Napoli, he ended up living in the swampland of Florida, lording only over some property he called Lipona, an anagram of the kingdom he had lost. He dreamed of leading armies in Italy, but ended up, as one legend has it, the postmaster of Tallahassee. Banished to New Jersey and Florida. Someone in the 19th century knew how to levy punishment. All kidding aside, these stories are almost real-life versions of the lyrics to the Coldplay hit, Viva La Vida:I used to rule the worldSeas would rise when I gave the wordNow in the morning, I sleep aloneSweep the streets I used to ownAnd in turn, all of this is probably the most persistent theme in Stoicism, both philosophically and biographically. Zeno was a wealthy merchant from a prominent family with a fleet of ships, until a storm dashed them all to pieces. He ended up in Athens with nothing in his pockets. Cato was a towering Roman Senator, only to suddenly find himself on the wrong side of a vicious civil war. He was powerful one day, disemboweled the next. The same was true of his rival cum ally Pompey, the general who loved the lectures of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius. A lifetime of victories evaporated in a single hour at the Battle of Pharsalus. Shortly thereafter, he was decapitated by pirates as he tried to go into exile. Seneca was the man behind the throne with Nero...until Nero turned on him. All of our fates and fortunes rest on pillars of sand. Today we are on high, tomorrow can bring us down low...and the day after, lower than we even believed possible. That’s life. It humbles us. It surprises us. It is not inclined to show mercy—or care about our precious dreams.That’s why we must be prepared: premeditatio malorum (an anticipation of the twists and turns of fate) and amor fati (ready to love whatever that fate is) are not just principles to abide, they are tools to deploy in the forging of our inner citadel, in the smithing of an iron spine. They allow us to endure and survive anything. The vagaries of life are why we must be careful of ego (it is the enemy, after all); careful of anything that makes us think what we have right now is actually ours, or that it says anything about us as people. Because if we allow the presence of the things we have and hold dear to  define us, their untimely aSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yes, the Stoics talk a lot about death. How it’s inevitable. How life is fragile. How it can be taken from us at any moment. It’s in our power to live well, Seneca said, but not in our power to live long.It’s easy to take from these commentaries that the Stoics were completely fatalistic about their health, and that’s a mistake—one easily disproved by the evidence. Seneca talked about death, but he also talked about the life-giving powers of taking a cold plunge. He experimented with vegetarianism. He exercised. He ate moderately not only because it was part of his philosophy, but because he knew that gluttons rarely live to see old age. Marcus Aurelius was treated by the famous doctor Galen, and one presumes that he did so because he asked Galen to improve his health, not worsen it.The key exercise in Stoicism, according to Epictetus, was distinguishing what’s in our control and what isn’t. Our genetics are not in our control. But we are not prisoners of them. They are not an oracle. We control our diet and our exercise. We can control how our genetics express themselves and impact our liveDeath can be random and cruel—as it was for the millions who died of the plague in Marcus’s time. Nobody controls that. But we do control whether we drive a motorcycle and decline to wear a helmet. You don’t control whether you get drafted and sent to fight in a war, but you do control whether you go around picking fights in bars or walk through the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time of day. We control whether we make smart decisions or dumb ones, whether we take good care of ourselves or not. We are all mortal. Life is fragile. But that doesn’t mean you kiss all the control up to God or to Fate. You decide whether you’re going to be healthy or not. You decide whether to be stupid or not. You decide the path you walk.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Keanon Lowe grew up in a family struggling to make ends meet. His father left when he was nine. When money was tight or when things were hard, his mother would try to encourage him by saying that it was alright. “You’re just where you’re supposed to be,” she said. This would be hard to accept over the years. It was hard to accept his college career at Oregon ended when the team lost in the playoffs to Ohio State in 2015. It was hard to accept when the NFL career he dreamed of ended by getting cut from the Arizona Cardinals after four days, with no more than a pair of gym shorts for his trouble. Then his first year as an NFL assistant ended when the coach who hired him got fired, and his second year ended the same way. Shortly thereafter, one of his best friends from his playing days died of an overdose. This is where he was supposed to be? This is how things were supposed to go? These are the kind of twists and turns of fate the Stoics tell us we’re supposed to love? How could that possibly be right?Well, as Greg Bishop (himself a fellow Stoic traveler) writes in his beautiful Sports Illustrated profile of Keanon, it is right. Because it is all leading somewhere, whether we know it or not. After all those losses and setbacks, Keanon ended up taking a job coaching at Parkrose High School...and working as the school security guard to make money on the side. On May 17th, Keanon was sent to Mr. Melzer’s Government class to grab a student who had been requested by a counselor. It just so happens that the very student he was looking for was working his way toward the classroom with a loaded shotgun. In a moment, they met. Keanon was exactly where he was supposed to be. Instead of running away, he ran towards it. He fought the young man and stopped an active shooter from doing god knows what. Keanon’s mother had been right. The Stoics were right. We have no idea what life has in store for us or what it is saving us for—even as it kicks our ass and breaks our hearts. Whatever we are going through, whatever is happening to us, we must know that: we are where we are supposed to be right now. How’s that?Because we can make it be where we are supposed to be. By the actions we take and the choices we make.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here’s a humbling thought: Even if your life is amazing and successful, even if you mind your own business and are kind to everyone you meet, somebody, somewhere is going to be happy when you’re dead. Somebody who wants to buy your house, somebody who you pissed off in high school, an up and comer looking to enter the job market, some hater who doesn’t like your work—they’re going to smile when they hear the news that you’ve passed. At the very least, there are some worms who are going to be glad to get to work on your corpse. It’s true for you and it’s true for everyone. It was as true for Gandhi and Mother Teresa as it is true for Anthony Bourdain and David Bowie and Kate Spade and the countless others who we say have left us too soon. Marcus Aurelius knew it would be true for himself, even though he was one of history’s few examples of a good king. As he wrote:It doesn’t matter how good a life you’ve led. There’ll still be people standing around the bed who will welcome the sad event. Even with the intelligent and good. Won’t there be someone thinking “Finally! To be through with that old schoolteacher. Even though he never said anything, you could always feel him judging you.” And that’s for a good man. How many traits do you have that would make a lot of people glad to be rid of you? Remember that, when the time comes.Really though, that’s something to remember now—hopefully long before your time comes. Because it helps prevent ego from creeping in. It prevents you from getting too caught up in trying to please everyone all the time. In a way, it’s a relief to accept that not everyone is rooting for us, and that no matter how successful we are, we can’t win over the whole world. Be true to who you are, Marcus said. Be kind and caring to the people who matter to you. And don’t be too attached to life or your reputation, because, at the end of the day, we all get knocked down to the same level when we die. Whether we’re Alexander the Great or Mr. Rogers or a mule driver, we get buried in the ground and chewed up by bugs until there’s nothing left. And some people are glad to hear of it. It’s a humbling thought.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.