The Daily Stoic - 26 Stoic Rules to Survive an Uncertain 2026

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

The year ahead is unknown, but one thing you can control is how you show up. In this episode, Ryan breaks down 26 timeless Stoic rules you can rely on when things feel overwhelming, chaotic, or out of your control. 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you. for listening. The one thing we can say for certain about the year ahead is that it is uncertain. We don't

know what's going to happen. But one thing you can count on in the year ahead is yourself. Things are going to be unnerving and overwhelming and confusing. But if you have a set of guidelines, if you have a set of value, if you have what they call panic rules, things that you do when things feel like they're falling apart, that's going to help you. You want to be able to count on yourself in 2026. So here 26 stoic rules, stoic guidelines to help you in the uncertain year ahead. And if you follow them, and if you live by them, I can guarantee you will have a great year, regardless of what's happening in the world around you. Number one, don't have an opinion about everything. This is what Marcus Aurelia says, remember, we always have the power to have no opinion. We are going to be

flooded with the latest breaking news with hot takes. with trends, with everyone's opinions. It's way too much to manage. And while some things you should have an opinion about, some things you don't need to have an opinion about. Things are not asking to be judged by you, Marksurelius says, leave them alone. Leave other people to their own opinions,

leave their arguing alone. Don't chase every trend, don't chase every latest outrage. Focus your attention where it matters. Focus your attention on what's important. leave the rest alone. This is the essential task in life, Epictetus says. Some things are up to us.

Some things are not up to us. Focus your attention on what is up to you. That's the core of Stoic philosophy. Yeah, the world is chaotic. It doesn't make sense. It's overwhelming. You don't control everything that happens. You don't control all that.

You don't control what other people do and say. But you control how you respond to those things. You control your mind. You control your values. You control your actions. you control what you do about it. Number three, you need to cut out everything that isn't essential. This comes to us from Mark Serrealis as well.

He says, we should ask ourselves at every moment, is this thing essential? And he says, if it isn't, we should get rid of it. And by the way, much of what we do is not essential. It's not important. It's not helping us. It doesn't matter. It's an obligation we inherited. It's a glittering distraction that caught our attention.

It's something that doesn't move the needle. And he says, when you get rid of the inessential, you get this double benefit. He says, because then you can do the essential things better. So going into the year, you want to stop wasting your energy, wasting your time, wasting your mental bandwidth. You only have so much energy. You only have so much time. Focus it on the essential things. Look, the morning is calm.

The morning is quiet. Less has happened. Less is asked of you. And most people sleep through this golden, wonderful time. The morning is the most important time of the day. I'm not saying it's easy to get up early. early? One of the fascinating passages in meditations, as Mark's realist arguing with himself about why he should get up early. He says, you were not put here to huddle under the covers and stay

warm. The morning is a sacred, special, wonderful time. Wake up, get after it. You were not meant to huddle under the covers and be warm. Take this quiet time. Don't get sucked into your phone right away. Use it. And if you're getting up early, then number five bookends very nicely with at the end of the day, take some time to reflect on the time just passed through journaling. This is basically what stoicism is. I would say stoicism and journaling are inseparable practices. And given how crazy, given how frustrating, given how overwhelming the year is likely to be, where and how are you going to be processing that?

Where and how are you going to be holding yourself accountable? Seneca says we should basically interrogate ourselves at the end of the day. He said he waited for his wife to go to sleep and he would sit down. down and sit with the pages of a journal and look at what he did well. Look at what he didn't do so well. He said, let nothing pass you by. Put it up for review. The evening review is the perfect way to wind down the day. Go to sleep and wake up and do better tomorrow. Stop giving your time away. It's crazy, the stoics say, that we are protective of our property and of our money. And then we're frivolous with our time. The one thing you can't recover. The one thing that's

they're not making any more of. Life isn't short, Seneca says. A year is a long time. The problem? We just waste it. We waste it on inessential things. We waste it getting distracted and upset by things that have nothing to do with us that we can't control. Time is precious.

Act accordingly. You only have so many hours in a day. You only have so many hours in a year. How are you going to spend them? And how are you going to spend them on things that matter? Always be challenging. challenging yourself. The Stoics would say, life is uncomfortable, so get used to being uncomfortable. Seneca would set aside a certain number of days throughout the year where he would survive on very little

food or sleep on the ground. He would try to rough it, basically. And he said the point of this was to get up close and comfortable with conditions that you can then say to yourself, this is what I was afraid of? Most of the time, we're trying to make life easier and smoother. It's a good instinct, that guess. But the problem then is that this makes us afraid of losing that comfort. And if we can actively challenge ourselves, get outside our comfort zone, get familiar with other states of living and being that other people are petrified of, it makes us freer because then we can be more courageous. We understand we can handle whatever happens. And we're toughening ourselves up as we go, and that's always a good thing. You should do something for the common good every single day, right? The world

is dark. Bad things are going to be happening in 2026. Things you don't like. are going to happen in 2026. If you want to make sure you don't live in a dark, screwed up, awful world, well, one thing you can do is not be dark and awful. You can do good things, right? Stoicism is not just about self-improvement. It's a philosophy around helping others and improving the world. Marksuelas talks about the idea of the common good, something like 80 times in meditations. He says, actually, the fruit of a good life is good character and acts for the common good. So what is the good you're going to do? And if you can set a rule that you always try to do good, you'll have a good year. Number nine, silence distractions. Here at the beginning of the year,

get a TV out of your bedroom, get the phone out of your bedroom, delete apps from your phone, limit the inputs. We are needlessly bombarded by way too much noise, way too many things competing for our attention. And you've got to learn how to shut this out. Stoics talk about concentrating like a Roman, doing it as if this thing in front of you matters. Being philosophical is the ability to go deep, It's the ability to lock in, the ability to tune out, and you're going to need this in a crazy year. 10. Pause before you react. Athena Doris, an ancient Stoic who lived in the time of Augustus. He's an advisor to the future young emperor back when his name was Octavian.

And he tells Octavian that one of the keys to being a successful leader is that before he reacts to anything, before he does anything out of anger, he should count all 24 letters of the alphabet. only being 24 letters in the alphabet then. The idea is pause and reflect. You can have the emotion, you can have the feeling, you can be triggered, but what matters is whether you take the action on it or not. Pause and reflect. I actually carry a coin in my pocket that reminds me of this very idea. It's awesome. One of the things we do when we pause and reflect, we have to put every impression and emotion and an opinion to the test, right? This is what stoicism is saying, I'm having this feeling, I'm having this thought. Is it true? Is it important? Is it in line with the values I have with the person

I want to be? Epicetus talked about how a philosopher should be able to take every impression, opinion, bit of information it gets and test it the way a money changer checks for counterfeit currency. He said they can bang it on the table and tell in an instant if the metal is diluted or not. The idea is you're going to have emotions. You're going to have strong opinions. You're going to think things want to do things in 2026. But do you have the ability to go, hey, is my assumption here correct? Is my information correct? Right? Is this what I want to do? Is this who I want to be? You want to put all this stuff to the test. The Stoics were not emotionless. They just tried not to do things out of emotion, and that is a critical difference. If you want to have a rich 2026, reduce your desires.

Epic Tita says that if you wish for things to be as they are, you will have them. And so if you can reduce your needs, if you can reduce your baseline, if you can reduce your expectations, you'll have a rich and prosperous 2026. If this year or any year is dependent on you achieving or getting things at a certain level, then your success is going to be dependent on things going a certain way. And that's a vulnerable place to be. If you need a bigger house, a bigger car, if you need more followers, more attention, you're going to be on a treadmill this year. And that's what Seneca means when he said, it's not the person who has. has little that's poor, it's the person who wants more.

The most avoidable form of poverty is wanting more than you have. The idea is being able to be grateful to appreciate to be good with what you've got. That's the recipe for a great year. Number 13, just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. That's Marcus Reelis writing to himself in meditations. The Stoic Virtue of Justice has nothing to do with whether things are legal or not. It doesn't matter if people are watching or not. It doesn't matter if you can get away with it.

What they cared about is, is it the right thing to do? You have to have your code. You have to have your values. You have to have your ethics and you stick by them. And by the way, in a world where it seems like everything is upside down when, when bad people are getting ahead, when horrible things are happening and no one's being held accountable, one way you can get your bearings. One way you can make things right again is by focusing on doing the right thing. Again, not expecting a reward, not expecting a parade, not expecting recognition, but saying, hey, I do what's right because that's what's in my control.

That's the kind of person I want to be. That's the kind of world I want to live in. The rest of the Stoics say doesn't matter. I mean, of course, it does matter. And this is why we have a legal system and all of that. They're just saying that's not as up to you. And so what you should focus on is the part of it that's up to you, which is the standard of behavior you set and keep for yourself.

Number 14, practice acceptance. Look, there's going to be stuff that happens in 2026 that you don't like, that you didn't want. And I don't just mean like out in the world. I just mean like, that's life, right? There's going to be travel delays. The stock market's going to go up and down. People are going to say things you don't like. Like, stuff's just going to happen.

Nobody gets their way. And so what stoicism is is an understanding that we have to accept this. That's very different than resignation, right? You accept that this happen and you focus on your response. your attitude, what you're going to do about it. This is what they mean when they say the obstacle is the way. You want to treat what happens as an opportunity. But to first do that, you have to accept what it is and what it represents. You have to accept the things it closed and you have to accept the things that it opened for you. That's the form of acceptance you're going to need to practice in the year ahead. So we had an unusual little first world problem in our family. We built a little house down on the Gulf Coast, almost done. And now we're in the the process of furnishing it. And we had to get mattresses for all the rooms. And so it was like, what mattresses do we want? And I was asking a friend, you know, what mattress do you have? Do you have a mattress you love? And they were like, I love Helix. And as it happens, that's who we grabbed a house

full of mattresses from. And they are, coincidentally enough, today's sponsor. It's obvious why people love their Helix mattresses. They're not just comfortable. They're comfortable for a reason. You fill this quiz that matches you with the perfect mattress based on your preferences and your sleep needs. We ended up getting the midnight mattress since it's got that medium firmness. It's not too firm, not too soft. And as it happens, it's their best-selling model. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand. It's been tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. They've got free shipping, seamless delivery. Like, honestly, the mattresses came sooner than we were thinking. We were doing this all. And then, like, the mattresses arrived sooner than the beds, which

is awesome. Helix delivers the mattress right to your door with free shipping in the U.S. and you can rest easy with the happy with Helix guarantee that ensures seamless returns and exchanges. It's a risk-free customer-first experience designed to ensure that you're completely satisfied with your new mattress and includes 120-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. Go to helix sleep.com slash stoic for 27% off. That's helix.com slash stoic for 27% off. Just make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. Helix.com slash stoic. Don't suffer more than you have to. As I said, bad things are going to happen. The problem is

the anxiety and the fear that we have about the potential of that happening. Seneca says that he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. And he says the reality is A lot of us suffer more in our minds than we do in reality. The dread, the torture, the anxiety. What if this? What if that? What if this? What if that? That's not stoicism.

You want to be prepared. You want to be trained to handle the various contingencies that might come up. You want to make sure you're not torturing yourself in advance. What's going to happen is what's going to happen. What matters is are you the kind of person who can roll with the punches? Are you the kind of person who doesn't lose their cool? Are you the person that focuses on what you're going to do about it? emoting about the problem, fretting about the problem, worrying about the problem, talking to people about the problem.

None of that does anything about the problem. So don't suffer more than you have to this year. Number 16, talk less, listen more. Zeno says we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Let's try to orient our outputs and our inputs around that ratio this year. When you open your mouth, you stop listening. So let's focus on learning. Let's focus on hearing. Let's focus on connection. Let's focus on chattering less. And this goes back to that idea of cutting out the inessential. Most of these things don't need you to talk about them. Most of these things are not asking for your opinion. Talk less, listen more. 17. Let's focus on progress, not perfection. Like, of course, we're going to want things to go well. We want to hold ourselves to our standards. We want to make sure everything's

going the right way. But also, this perfectionism is often just a dressed up version of procrastination. Churchill actually said a great way to spell perfectionism was paralysis. Just get after it this year. Get moving. You don't need a perfect, complete solution to every problem. You need to make progress. This is one of my rules. Like just a couple crappy pages a day as a writer. As long as I'm making a contribution, as long as I'm getting better, as long as I'm moving forward, I'm happy with that. I'm going to celebrate that as a win. I'm not going to expect perfection because perfection is impossible, especially in a flawed world that we don't control. And this is actually something the Stoics talk about. They said we don't despair of a pursuit because perfection is impossible.

No, we want to get better. We want to improve. And by the way, that's how you do get to some impressive place. The Stoics said that well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. Little contributions day-to-day refine as you go. That ends up somewhere much more impressive than the paralysis that perfectionism can induce in us. Number 18, be strict with yourself, but tolerant with others. It's good to have high standards. It's good to know what's important. It's good to know what works.

It's good to know how things should be done. But we have to remember the virtue here is self-discipline. We don't get to be a tyrant. We don't get to be a strict taskmaster. Mark Surrealis writes this in meditations. He says, remember, tolerant with others, strict with yourself. You control you. You don't control other people.

You don't get to go around being disappointed in them because they didn't live up to your standards, especially if they never signed up for your standards in the first place. They don't have the advantages you have. They don't have the training you have. They didn't ask to be bullied or judged by you. So let's be appreciative. Let's be understanding. Let's celebrate other people for what they are and what they're capable of.

Let's leave the strictness and the standards for ourselves. Number 19. Stop complaining this year. Complaining doesn't make situations better. That's not what people who change things do. In Meditations, Mark Serrealist, has never be overheard complaining, not even to yourself. Traffic is annoying, but yelling in your car isn't changing anything. Yeah, that thing that somebody said to you was rude or crappy, but whining about

at it later, letting it ruin your day, that doesn't change anything. Complaining doesn't change things. Focusing on what you're going to do about them is a much better use of your energy. Don't be a downer. Don't be a whiner. Focus on what's up to you. That's what matters. Number 20, love everything that happens. It's one thing to practice acceptance, and we're going to have to do that in the year ahead. It's another to see opportunities inside obstacles. That's another thing we're going to have to do this year. But this is a one thing we're going to have to do this year. concept of amorphati, which comes to us from Nietzsche, but essentially Stoicism 101, is the highest level. It's the idea of saying, hey, it's actually great that it happened. It's good that

things are so screwed up. It's good that things are so frustrating and dysfunctional. This is the opportunity. This is the opportunity for me to do good. This is the opportunity for me to grow. This is the opportunity for me to be heroic. This is the opportunity for me to step up. This is forming me, shaping me. This is exactly the way it's meant. to be and I'm going to meet this moment. That's what loving everything that happens is about. Now, that doesn't mean you love that the economy crash. It doesn't mean you love that someone just robbed you. Doesn't mean you love that you got a cancer diagnosis. That would be profoundly insensitive. The idea of amorphati is you love what it's going to do to you. You love how you are going to

change in response to it. You love what this is going to teach you. You love what you are going to make of it. That's what stoicism is. That's the attitude we need to bring to the new year. Number 21, you have to detach your self-worth from outcomes. As they say in the Bacavad Gita, you are entitled to the work. You are not entitled to the fruits of the work. Most of the outcomes are not in our control. When I write a book, I control what I put into it. I control the writing. I control that work. I don't control once I put it out, what people say about it, how it sells. I don't control any of that stuff. I have to learn to love that part of it. I have to learn to love sitting down in writing. I have to learn that success is doing that. That that's my job,

that that's the part to appreciate. As Marks really says in meditations, it's insane to tie your well-being to things outside your control to let other people say whether you succeeded. He says happiness and tranquility is tying your success to what's in your control, to the reaching of your standards to the effort that you put in through what you learned, what you take out of the process. That's what we have to focus on. Focus on the process in 2026. Focus on what's up to you in 26, not what other people say about you, not the results that come in in the year ahead. 22, take a book with you everywhere you go. The foundational story of stoicism is Zeno learning from the Oracle of Delphi that the secret to wisdom is to have conversations.

with the dead. That's what reading is. It's a superpower. It's a chance to talk to people who aren't here anymore. I'm talking to you about Mark Srealis and Seneca and Epictetus, some of the wisest people who ever lived as if they're still with us. Because they are still with me. I carry them with me everywhere. I engage with them on a daily basis. The year ahead is going to be rough. It's going to throw a lot at you. You want to annex the wisdom from the past into your own life. That's what Seneca said. The study of philosophy allows you to do. Read less news in the year ahead. focus less on what's happening in any given moment and talk to the dead instead. Talk to the wise people who have been through stuff like this before and learn what they have to teach us.

23. Say no a lot this year. I think this is one of the hardest things to do in life, to say no to invitations, to request, obligations to the stuff everyone else is doing, to say no to money. The problem is we don't understand that when we're saying yes, we are in fact saying no. We're saying no to ourselves. We're saying no to our family. We're saying no to our work, we're saying no to our health. We're saying no to what we should actually be doing.

For some reason, it's harder to be rude to this person who sends you an email asking you to do them a huge favor than it is to be rude to your seven-year-old who wants to play, who wonders why you're not home when you're usually home. Say no this year. Say no to the things that are inessential, as Marksurelius reminds us. So you can say yes to the things that are essential. Remember, no is a complete sentence. You don't have to explain.

Don't be rude on purpose. Don't be a jerk. But if it's not essential, if it's not important, if you know it's not what really moves the needle, what you really need to be doing this year, say no to it. And that's going to mean saying no a lot. Number 24, ask for help.

One of the big misconceptions about stoicism is that it's about creating invincible, untouchable, invulnerable superheroes. You are not an island. You are not in this alone. You are not capable of doing this alone. One of the most beautiful passages from Mark Surrealis has him saying that we are like soldiers storming a wall. He says, if you've fallen and you have to ask a comrade for help, so what?

Right? He's saying, so what? Because that's actually the job of a soldier. They are meant for each other. They are meant to help each other. When your friends ask you for help, when they come to you with something they're struggling with or thinking about or whatever it is, you're never like, get the fuck out of here. No, you're like, thank you. It means something to you. And then for some reason, we're reluctant to do that ourselves. Ask for help this year. It will make you better. It will connect you more to others. It will make you capable of doing what you need to do this year. Number 25, stop comparing yourselves to others. We are running our own race here. You don't know other people's races. You don't know when they started. You don't know how far they're going. You don't even know if they're telling the truth, right? Most people are lying about their success. You think Instagram influencers actually live like these photos look? Of course not. And yet here we are like being. envious and insecure asking ourselves, well, why am I not doing that? Are they doing better than me? Do you think it's good for business, for competitors to talk about how much trouble they're having?

No, everyone is lying. Everyone is pretending. Everyone is painting a false picture. Seneca said the key to a good life is to have a sense of the path that you're on. And he said, to not be distracted by the paths that crisscross yours. And this is the important part. He said, especially from the footsteps of those who are helplessly lost. Know where you're going, know the race you're running, run that race, ignore everything else around. And number 26, this might seem a little morbid, but it is essential. Think about death every day. The stoic exercise here is memento mori, right?

Remember, you are mortal. You are not going to live forever. You do not have unlimited time. You don't control when or how you go. This isn't supposed to be depressing. It is a tool to create priority and meaning. You could leave life right now, Marx really says in meditations. let that determine what you do and say and think.

And this has been a tool for generations. Philosophers use it to create perspective and urgency and priority and clarity. When you think about your life coming to a close, it tells you what's essential and what isn't. It turns down the volume on so much stuff. So do this practice. And understand, as Seneca says, that death isn't this thing that's going to come at us once. But in fact, we are dying every day. We are dying every minute.

A year has just come to a close. You'll never get that year back. It's gone forever. We are dying every day. We are dying every minute. So we should live accordingly. And that's what this practice of Momentumori reminds us to do. Life is short. We don't know how long we have. Let's live accordingly.