The Daily Stoic - This Can Change the Course of Your Life

Starting point is 00:00:00 This month at Wayfair, they're putting on their biggest annual sale of the year. From April 25th through the 27th, it's Way Day. And you can score the best deals in home, like 80% off with free shipping on everything. And Wayfair makes it easy to find exactly what fits your style and needs, furniture, decor, home improvement, outdoor essentials. It's all on sale on Way Day. Upgrade your space with quality pieces that work within your budget. And as I said, everything ships fast and free during Way Day.

Starting point is 00:00:30 If you shop Wayfair verified, you get their team of product specialists who vet everything by hand using a 10-point quality inspection so you know you're getting a quality piece no matter your budget. Wayfair's got a ton of options, even bigger furniture that would normally be a pain to ship. It's conveniently delivered right to your door. Way Day is the sale to shop the best deals in home. Get up to 80% off with fast and free shipping on everything. Head over to Wayfair.com from April 25th through the 27th to shop Wayday. W-A-Y-F-A-I-R-com, Wayfair, Every Style, Every Home. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues,

Starting point is 00:01:13 courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. The right book at the right time is a powerful thing. In fact, it can change the whole course of your life. Sometime in the first century AD, a young Marcus A.D., was given a copy of Epictetus's lectures from his teacher's own library. Walking the halls one day as a grad student at Stanford, a professor invited James Stockdale into his office. Reaching behind him, he too grabbed a worn copy of Epictetus off the shelf and handed it to this promising young man. Not only did these books change the lives of the people they were given to, Marcus Aurelius relying on it when he

Starting point is 00:01:55 became emperor and Stockdale as a prisoner of war, but it may have indirectly changed your life, too. How many people heard about the Stoics from these two evangelists? How many people has their example inspired? And there's actually another impressionable kid whose life was changed by such a recommendation. Who? Who you might ask? Me. When I first picked up meditations 18 years ago, I had no idea how much that book would impact my life. I had no idea the immense and positive impact this ancient philosophy that I'd never heard about would have on my relationship with family and friends, but also the relationship I had with myself. I certainly had no idea that I'd one day write books about stoicism

Starting point is 00:02:37 or that these books would sell millions of copies and lead to a global resurgence of the philosophy today. You would not be reading or listening to this right now without someone doing for me what Junius Rousticus did for Marcus Aurelius and Professor Rhinelander did for Stockdale. I seem to remember my copy, the Modern Library Edition, with a beautiful translation from Gregory Hayes, arriving right after I ordered it. But recently searching my email for that order number tells me

Starting point is 00:03:05 otherwise. Instead, I found an angry customer service ticket where a teenager was angrily complaining about a few-day shipping delay. How badly I then needed those words in six, five, two of meditations. You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Reading those lines, again, I'm reminded of the strange magic within meditations. Because when Marcus says, you as in you have to assemble your life action by action or the things you think about determine the quality of your mind. He is obviously speaking to himself. And because he never intended those words to be read by anyone, this exercise in self-improvement is so radically sincere and earnest, even painfully so at times, that it actually has the unintended benefit of speaking directly

Starting point is 00:03:51 to you, helping all of us with our common problems. And as unrelatable as antiquity might seem, human beings remain ever the same. This is why meditations has endured for almost 2,000 years. Why great leaders throughout history have carried it into battle, why businessmen and athletes and stay-at-home moms and so many others turn to it for guidance today for whatever struggles and obstacles they face. However, I believe that Marcus and his meditations wouldn't have the impact it has had today if it weren't for this beautiful English translation by Gregory Hayes. It was that translation that I first picked up all those years ago, and I think it remains one of the best you can get today. And when the Daily Stoic decided to publish a leatherbound edition of that, there was no

Starting point is 00:04:36 question which translation we were going to ask for. It was going to be the Hays translation. And you can grab copies of that. I'll link to it in today's show notes. But if you're curious about what Meditations has meant to me or you have questions about that book or Marks I would love to invite you. We're doing a live Q&A session. We're going to do a deep dive into Meditations. And if you get our How to Read Marcus Aurelius Meditations, this guide we made with Daily Stoic, that's how you can receive your invite. And you can bundle it with a copy of meditations for some savings and a bunch of other awesome stuff. So just head over todailystoic.com to Meditations to grab those and learn about Meditations month here at Daily Stoic. That's

Starting point is 00:05:13 dailystoic.com slash meditations.

The Daily Stoic - This Can Change the Course of Your Life

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