The Daily Stoic - Run Down The List. Where Are They Now?

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Starting point is 00:00:59 bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20% off your first year. Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show of descriptions to make those ads go away. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of

Starting point is 00:01:50 history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visitdailystoic.com. Run down the list. Where are they now? It's been generations upon generations. now. For thousands and thousands of years, human beings have been doing the same things, as the Stoics observed. They've been chasing power and fame. They've been accumulating stuff. They've been arguing over trivial things. They've been trying to impress other people.

Starting point is 00:02:44 Where are those people now? Marcus Aurelius asked in an important passage in meditations. Where are they now? Run through the list, he tells himself. Run through the list of the big, powerful historical figures. you knew personally, where are they now? Gone, already forgotten, already worm food. He dismisses many of these figures, perhaps alluding to Hadrian or Nero or Caligula, as people who worked in vain, who failed to do what they should have. He sees this all as very tragic, that they were fixed on the wrong things, that they tried to find satisfaction in the wrong things. If we run down a version of this list ourselves, we'll find the same thing. How many pro

Starting point is 00:03:31 athletes from our youth are already old, forgotten, or in some cases broke? What happened to the vice president when you were born? Do you even know who it was? What about the top 10 people on the Forbes list from 15 years ago? What about that jerk you used to work with? Life is very brief. it's far too brief to spend it chasing the wrong things to be attentive to the wrong things it's too short to spend it the way too many people do which is to say and as marcus realist does say in meditations unthinkingly plotting flattering seeking arguing and throwing parties don't waste what's left of your life as marcus put it spend it on what matters to you before you become just another forgotten name on someone else's forgotten list.

The Daily Stoic - Run Down The List. Where Are They Now?

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