The Daily Stoic - These Add Up to Greatness

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Starting point is 00:00:56 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 history's greatest men, and women 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. Washington's favorite saying was that many Mickels make a muckle. It's an old Scottish proverb that illustrates a truth that we all know. Things add up, even the little ones, even at the pace of one per day. That's what the Stoics believe, too. They said it is the little things that add up to wisdom and virtue. What you read, who you study under, what you prioritize, how you treat

Starting point is 00:02:19 someone, what your routine is like, the training that you undergo, what rules you follow, what habits you cultivate day to day practiced over a lifetime this is what creates greatness this is what leads to a good life well-being is realized by small steps zeno would say looking back at his life but it is truly no small thing and in one of his most famous letters to lucilius seneca gives a pretty good prescription for the good life each day he wrote acquires something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against all other misfortunes. And after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested each day. One quoted day, he was saying, and sharing, that's the path to getting better and wiser and stronger and more resilient. And what

Starting point is 00:03:13 excuse do you have for not meeting that goal? For not hitting that benchmark. It's within reach for all of us, no matter how busy or stressed or simple we are, if we decide that it is. And actually, you know, one of the ways I do this as part of my practice is I have this daily stoic page day calendar on my desk. This is today's quote. Remember that you are an actor in a play, Epictetus says, playing a character according to the will of the playwright. For this is your duty to perform well the character assigned to you. I just love this. So I keep it on my desk. I pull it off each. day I meditate on it, and I put it in my little recycling bin and compost it. But the point is

Starting point is 00:03:53 it's helpful to have something to kick off each day. The next quote is, the universe is change. Life is opinion. That's from Meditations 4-3. Actually, the quote each day corresponds to the quote in the Daily Stoke. Anyways, we've got them back in stock. People have loved these calendars and just in time for the new year. They're available at store.com. Daily Stoic.com. I'll link in today's show notes, but one game per day, one thing to meditate or think on each day, if we can accomplish that, especially first thing in the morning. It's a great place to start, and I hope you check out the Daily Stoic Page a Day calendar. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible.

Starting point is 00:04:44 I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast. to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic. We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free, no interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came

Starting point is 00:05:32 here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive 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 descriptions to make those ads go away.

The Daily Stoic - These Add Up to Greatness

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