The Daily Stoic - These Days You Need Double What It Takes | Reignite Your Thoughts

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

We can train. We can prepare. This will not be enough. Because more will be expected of us still, more will be piled onto our plates.📔 Pick up your own leather bound signed edition of The Daily Stoic! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/👉 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 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 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. These days, you need double what it takes. You think Marcus Aurelius wasn't prepared?

Of course he was. Almost no one received more on-the-job training than he did, roughly two decades under Antoninus. He had fantastic teachers. He was trained in Stenius. a philosophy which not only prepared for the worst, but never expected the best. And still, still life rocked him. His reign was marked by an unending series of troubles. Misfortune after misfortune befell him. Plagues, war, the death of his children, an unfaithful wife.

Surely this exhausted his reserves. Surely this taxed him beyond capacity. And yet, yet still, Still, he had to keep going, as we all do. Sometimes life feels like it's out to get us. It throws every type of adversity at us, illness, financial troubles, relationship issues, inequality and injustice. But still, we must keep going. We can train, we can prepare, we can stock up, we can rehearse in our minds what we need to do. This will not be enough.

because more will be expected of us still, more will be piled onto our plates. Enough is not enough. We'll need double, maybe more, especially these days. We'll need to reach deep down inside us to find some more. We'll need to keep going, even on empty, because it's going to take what it's going to take, and all we can do is take it, or not. Today's sponsor is Chime, the fee-free banking app changing the way people bank. Chime is not just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking for everyday people with products like MyPay,

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daily stoic. I'm holding the leather-bound edition today in my hands. Your principles can't be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it is continually in your power to re-ignite new ones. It's possible to start living again. See things anew as you once did. This is how to restart life. That's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 7-2. Have you had a bad couple weeks? Have you been drifting away from the principles and beliefs that you hold dear. It's perfectly fine. It happens to all of us. In fact, it probably happened to Marcus. That's why he scribbled this note to himself. Perhaps he was dealing with difficult senators or having difficulties with his troubled son. Perhaps in these scenarios, he lost his temper,

became depressed, or stopped checking in with himself. Who wouldn't? But the reminder here is that no matter what happens, no matter how disappointing our behavior has been in the past, the principles remain unchanged. We can return and embrace them at any moment. What happened yesterday, what happened five minutes ago is in the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like. Why not do it now? I think it's pretty lovely that although Marcus seems like this impossible ideal, this philosopher king, this magnificent, peerless human being, several times in meditations he talks about picking himself up when he fails. He talks about getting back up when you fail because he did fail. He fell short a lot, right? He must have. He writes this in meditations. He says that we shouldn't feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. He said, but try to get back up when you fail to celebrate behaving like a human, however imperfectly, fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on. He's saying that not to you, but to himself,

because like you, he fell short. He screwed up. I think, again, we think of self-discipline, like someone who's in great shape, someone who sticks to a diet, someone who has good habits, we think of them as perfect. That's really not what they are. Actually, part of that is having the high standard falling short and then not writing yourself off or giving into that new thing, right, to be able to come back to the habit, to reset, to recommit when one falls short. You know, we want to say, ah, what the hell? Does it even matter? We throw in the towel.

We quit because we screwed up or we fell short. But I think what Marcus is saying is like, look, you can screw up. You can fail. Or like things can knock you off your block. Like life can happen to you. You don't control that, but you always control whether you get back up, whether you come back to it or not, right? he says we can't be extinguished only we can snuff it out to me that's what he's saying that we

always have the power to come back to it to start anew to restart to recommit so you know maybe you're doing the new year new challenge with us right now maybe you've already fallen short on some of your resolutions maybe maybe you relapsed I don't know maybe you lost your temper this morning I don't know but you can come back to it right you can start living again. It's in your power to re-ignite, to come back to it, to pick yourself up when you fail to celebrate behaving like a human being to fully brace the pursuit that you've embarked on. Don't be exasperated, Marcus is saying. Don't be defeated. Don't be despondent. You're not perfect. No one thinks that you are. It was silly to expect that you could be. I like the advice from Oprah,

where she says, like, just because you ate one of the Oreos doesn't mean you have to finish the sleeve, right? Like, pick yourself back up. Don't snuff it out. Don't quit. Don't quit on yourself. Keep going. Don't give up. That's what today's message is. Reignite. Come back to the philosophy. Recommit to it. I know you can do it. Let's have a great year together. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoog podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.