Daily Stoic

Question 1

Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but some day not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.

Answer 1

From @dailystoic

Question 2

Marcus Aurelius summed up life along similar lines: “Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So that new things can be born.” Nothing is permanent. Not failure. Not pain. Not fame. Not fortune. Not you. Not anyone.

Answer 2

From @dailystoic

Question 3

death was a process—it was happening to us right now. We are dying every day, he said. Even as you read this email, time is passing that you will never get back. That time, he said, belongs to death.

Answer 3

From @dailystoic

Question 4

Hillel was asked to explain the Torah.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” he said. “All the rest is commentary.”

Answer 4

From @dailystoic

Question 5

Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom. Or maybe they would have given you a sentence that implied those four words: “It’s not what happens to you in life, but how you respond.” Meaning that every situation calls for us to respond with those four virtues.

Answer 5

From @dailystoic

Question 6

Observers of the presidency have observed that only the impossible problems make their way to the Oval Office. Everything that’s clean and easy? That gets decided down lower in the chain of command. It’s the intractable, no-win situations that get escalated to the leader’s desk.

Answer 6

From @dailystoic

Question 7

It might seem like an easy decision to us in retrospect, but that’s because the decision was never offered to us.

Answer 7

From @dailystoic

Question 8

Leadership, like life, is often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. It’s about making the best of bad situations. It’s about being pragmatic and realistic.

Answer 8

From @dailystoic

Question 9

We live in the real world. Where there are only hard decisions. Where the easy, simple problems get greedily gobbled up by lesser men and women. It’s the tough stuff that falls on us.

Answer 9

From @dailystoic

Question 10

“Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you,” said Marcus Aurelius. “Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation.” Seize the present moment, concentrate on it like a Roman. Don’t get distracted. Don’t dwell on regret, don’t give in to anxiety. Look at what is in front of you, look at it with everything you have.

The present moment is the same for everyone, no matter their job, no matter how well or how terrible things have been going. The present is all anyone possesses. To waste it, to let it escape you, to fritter it away with fear or frustration, is not only to set yourself up for failure, it is a rejection of a beautiful gift.

Focus on the now. Be where you are… while you still can.

Answer 10

From @dailystoic

Question 11

Stoicism, as we have said, is not the elimination of all emotion. It’s the regulation of them.

Answer 11

From @dailystoic

Question 12

It’s OK to be surprised. It’s OK to be scared. It’s OK to be hurt, Seneca said. No amount of philosophy can remove that initial feeling, but what you can work towards is getting to a place where you’re not ruled by these things.

Answer 12

From @dailystoic

Question 13

My mother’s advice was, don’t lose time on useless emotions like anger, resentment, remorse, envy. Those, she said, will just sap time; they don’t get you where you want to be. One way I coped with times I was angry: I would sit down and practice the piano. I wasn’t very good at it, but it did distract me from whatever useless emotion I was feeling at the moment.

Answer 13

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Question 14

A Stoic isn’t an emotionless robot. They’re also not a body at the whim of every feeling originating from the heart and brain. We are in control. Our ruling reason makes the decisions.

Answer 14

From @dailystoic

Question 15

Forgiveness is a critical part of that virtue of “justice” to the Stoics. But it’s hard. It doesn’t just happen. It’s something we have to work on, will ourselves to do, as Pete said.

Answer 15

From @dailystoic

Question 16

every time he thinks about them or talks about them, he says to himself, “I forgive them.” It’s an active process, something he is constantly working on, willing himself towards. Because it won’t happen on its own, and because it’s vitally important if he wants to be a good father himself (and not made miserable in the present by old wounds from the past.)

Answer 16

From @dailystoic

Question 17

This pain is real. It is not fair. But we have to figure out how to process it, how to move past it. Stoicism is not, as we’ve talked about, simply the stuffing down of one’s emotions. It’s not pretending that feelings don’t exist.

Answer 17

From @dailystoic

Question 18

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you. - Philip Larkin

Answer 18

From @dailystoic

Question 19

“Seneca said that misfortune lands most heavily when it was not expected. The idea of practicing, envisioning, training for all the contingencies of life, of a game, of a trying situation? This is how we ensure we’re able to navigate it correctly. Winging it? That’s for amateurs. Pros? They prepare.”

Answer 19

From @dailystoic

Question 20

You have to practice. You have to be ready. For any of it. For whatever it is that your life may bring. Or you’re going to get crushed.

Answer 20

From @dailystoic

Question 21

is not about tempting fate. It’s about being ready for any fate. Positive visualization without negative visualization is just dreaming—it’s fantasy. Visualization without preparation, without work? It’s worthless.

Answer 21

From @dailystoic

Question 22

losing one’s temper was a vice and that other people could not make us angry. We choose to get upset.

Answer 22

From @dailystoic

Question 23

A friend of Ulysses S. Grant couldn’t understand why this West Point grad was selling firewood. “I am solving the problem of poverty,” Grant replied. Meaning: A Stoic does what they have to do. They play the hand they were dealt, even if it’s beneath them or exhausting. In fact, the Stoic doesn’t believe that any job—any profession or action—is beneath them if it is what life is demanding of them. To the Stoic, a dollar earned honestly is a good one. To a Stoic, a job done well is a good one.

Even if they’d choose otherwise if given the opportunity. Even if their education entitles them to something else. Even if it gets them dirty or wears them out.

We do what we have to do. Nothing is below us. Because we do everything we do right.

Answer 23

From @dailystoic

Question 24

Instead of getting angry at other people’s poor execution, focus on the deficiencies in your instruction. Instead of resenting their protest, examine whether you’ve been persuasive enough. Don’t get mad about red tape—think about all the bad ideas this process actually has helped stop. Be forgiving of other people’s stupidity or rudeness—because you’ve been plenty guilty of it yourself at one time or another.

The world is not conspiring against us. It is not filled with dunces. If anything, we are the dunces for not focusing our energy on the only things that matter:

Answer 24

From @dailystoic

Question 25

success and wealth are often won at the cost of life.

Answer 25

From @dailystoic

Question 26

There’s no anguish, despair, or discontent present in the marvelling mind. There’s complete tranquility and stillness—the height of brilliance.

Answer 26

From @dailystoic

Question 27

Ego was a natural temptation for them, as it is for you, as it is for anyone in a position of leadership or influence.

Which is why we have to actively work against it—to remind ourselves that we’re not nearly so popular or special as we think.

Answer 27

From @dailystoic

Question 28

To Marcus, his temperance, his courage, his justice, his wisdom: none of these were remarkable. They were his duty, his obligations as a person. He was too busy doing them to think about them, let alone want to be recognized or celebrated for them. “Concentrate on what you have to do,” he told himself. “Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation.”

Remind yourself of it, too: if you want to be great, do your job. Focus on your task. Ignore everything else. Push ego away. Fight, as Marcus said, to be the person philosophy wants you to be.

Fix your eyes. Be a good person. Do your duty. Be great.

Answer 28

From @dailystoic

Question 29

No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, “No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.”

Answer 29

From @dailystoic

Question 30

If you want a world where people do the right thing, where they act on the courage of their conviction, then you must create a culture that respects those choices. You must carve out space to respect the taking of a principled stand, and must learn how to say, “I don’t agree, but man, that took guts.” That’s not to say you exempt them from consequences, that’s not to say you don’t fight against them if you do disagree, but you recognize and acknowledge guts when you see it.

Standing alone is a difficult thing. It’s a controversial thing. It’s, unfortunately, a rare thing

Answer 30

From @dailystoic

Question 31

a book isn’t supposed to be a mirror. It’s supposed to be a door!

Answer 31

From @thedailystoic

Question 32

It’s easy not to feel blessed. We look readily for what we don’t have rather than what we do. We see people who are taller, who look better, who have more and feel deprived.

“Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth,” he said, quoting Epicurus, “is unhappy, though he may be master of the whole world.”

What a miserable way to live. And how unnecessary! Today, you need to stop and look at what you have, not at what you lack. Count where you have been lucky, look at what has gone your way. Consider how many people who would kill to be where you are, to have been given the life that you have. “Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest,” Seneca reminded Lucilius.

Answer 32

From @dailystoic

Question 33

We have so many strong opinions. Especially about things we don’t like. We don’t like it, and we want you to know that we don’t like it—that musician, that politician, that restaurant, the way that so-and-so talks.

It’s almost like we take pleasure in the misery these things cause us. Needless to say, this is not Stoic. You think Marcus didn’t have things he didn’t like? Of course he did. Seneca, too. But they worked to get from a place of hate or dislike to what the Stoics called “indifference”—almost Zen-like nothingness towards what displeased them.

Answer 33

From @dailystoic

Question 34

One of the things I’ve gotten really good at as I’ve gotten older is not paying any attention to things I don’t like. Just letting it slide right out of my brain and onto the floor, I’m not interested. It’s just, I spent so much time when I was younger and stupider, worrying about things I don’t like, being upset at things I don’t like—well that sucks, why do people like that, what is wrong with them? And then I realized, like, what a gigantic waste of resources that is, just a huge waste of energy. I don’t care anymore. You know as long as they’re not stealing material, as long as they’re not you know doing something terrible to other comics, victimizing, as long as they’re not doing that, I really don’t care. If they’re doing well, good luck.

Answer 34

Joe Rogan

Question 35

“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “and to not let it upset our state of mind—for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.” Beautiful.

Answer 35

From @dailystoic

Question 36

When we do less, we get a double benefit. We cut out what is inessential and we do what is essential much, much better.

Answer 36

From @dailystoic

Question 37

There is good in all of us, even those of us who have done bad things. There is hope for all of us. The future can be brighter, as dark as the last year has been. Let today, regardless of your beliefs, mark a moment of rebirth. Of rejuvenation. Of reemergence. Tell yourself, as Epictetus said, that you’re not going to wait any longer to demand the best of yourself. Don’t, as Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, choose to be good tomorrow. Choose to be good today. For it is a new day, and it can be the beginning of a new you, too.

Answer 37

@dailystoic

Question 38

Even in the worst times, we have more than we need; even in the worst times, we can find some way to be generous to others.

Answer 38

From @dailystoic

Question 39

we solve our problems action by action, step by step. He said we can’t get deterred just because they are hard, or because they are hard for us. If it’s humanly possible to do it, he said, then commit to doing it and know that you can do it.

Answer 39

From @dailystoic

Question 40

The only way you could beat him was to break him and you were not going to break him

Answer 40

From @dailystoic

Question 41

Clench your jaw. Sit down (or stand up) and get to work. Don’t get excited. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep hammering away. That’s how you win a war and win at life. You solve most problems by beating them into submission. You crush resistance. You cannot be deterred and you cannot stop. If you can do that, then nothing can stop you.

Answer 41

From @dailystoic

Question 42

We have to accept that we cannot get even. That it’s an extra injury to ourselves to lower ourselves to the kind of cruelty, or stupidity of our opponents. They may steal from us… but we ought not steal time from ourselves stewing about them, or worse. There is no pound of flesh that will make us feel better. Only we can make ourselves feel good again—by focusing on what we have to be grateful for, by being good to others, by moving on.

Answer 42

From @dailystoic

Question 43

“Well-being is realized by small steps,” Zeno would say looking back on his life, “but is truly no small thing.” Which is why today and every day, you need to think about those little things. Because they are worth sweating. You need to create good habits. You need to stick to your rules. You can’t make excuses to yourself, saying, “Oh, this doesn’t matter.”

Because it adds up. Because it determines what you’ll accomplish, and what you won’t. Most importantly, it determines who you are.

Answer 43

From @dailystoic

Question 44

Marcus Aurelius:

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present

Answer 44

From @dailystoic

Question 45

Those of us who are not celebrity gossip addicts missed it. But a few weeks before the tragic and premature death of Chadwick Boseman, pictures showed him to be alarmingly thin and haggard. In comments sections and meme accounts, people joked at the effects of a few months of quarantine. Others called him Crack Panther, implying that drugs were to blame for his radical change in appearance.

Of course, we now know why he looked that way. He was dying of stage four colon cancer. He had only a few more days to live.

Even if you did not see these pictures or jump to those conclusions, the lesson is a sobering one: You have no idea what people are going through. The famous singer who puts on weight. The coworker who is messing up over and over. The new person you’re dating who seems to be suddenly preoccupied. The rude person in traffic. Even the Karen who is melting down on video at the grocery store.

We have no idea about their private struggles. We have no idea about their pain. Marcus Aurelius tried to remind himself that people and events are not asking to be judged by you. You have the option of having no opinion, he said. So, somebody gained weight? So someone seems different lately? Unless you’re providing sympathy or help, why don’t you mind your own business?

Nobody asked for your criticism. Nobody needs you to make fun of them. They’re struggling. They’ve got more than enough on their plate and they don’t need you adding to it. Remember that. Because every time you forget you risk ending up like the people who got their kicks mocking a guy dying of cancer. You end up missing what was actually quiet and profound heroism.

Answer 45

From @dailystoic

Question 46

You cannot go through life hanging on to hurt. You cannot let what has gone wrong give way to anger—in the moment or on a permanent basis. Because the damages from that emotion, Seneca said, will always outlast the damage from the original infraction. We have to learn how to forgive. We have to constantly be letting go, shedding off these ordinary and extraordinary things that have been done to us like dead skin.

To hold onto them is not a virtue. It is a vice.

Forgive. Forget. Move onward.

Answer 46

From @dailystoic

Question 47

“Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.” - Marcus Aurelius

Answer 47

From @dailystoic

Question 48

When so much is being thrown at you, when there is so much you could be thinking about or doing, the strength to tune it out and do the one thing that must be done is essential. To give everything you have to the task at hand? What other hope does one have to solve tough or difficult problems?

Answer 48

From @dailystoic

Question 49

you gotta read to free yourself from the yoke of doom and gloom that finds its way around your neck when you think you’re the only one who’s ever worn it. You have to get outside yourself. You have to enter other people’s minds and let them enter yours—which is something Marcus talked about. You have to understand you’re not alone. Your struggles are shared. There are people struggling even more than you are.

Answer 49

From @dailystoic

Question 50

Remember, Marcus Aurelius believed there was no shame in being proven wrong. Remember, Seneca sought out the views of the enemy camp and had no problem quoting rival schools over his own.

Answer 50

From @dailystoic

Question 51

A Stoic will flip-flop…if the facts demand it. A Stoic will align with the enemy…if the enemy is right (Marcus Aurelius famously said he’d hand the kingdom over to Avidius Cassius, his would-be usurper if it was for the good of Rome). A Stoic will accept a controversial or even objectionable view…if it’s true. A Stoic will give up…if they’ve been going the wrong direction.

We don’t care about who is right. We care about truth. We care about getting things right. That’s our job. That’s what counts.

Answer 51

From @dailystoic

Question 52

The Stoic focuses on where they can make a difference, where their efforts register. Why beat your head against the wall trying to convert everybody when there are plenty of somebodys

Answer 52

From @dailystoic

Question 53

There is an expression popular amongst basketball coaches. A coach doesn’t “get” a technical foul, they take one. If you’ve ever watched Gregg Popovich coach, you’ve seen it. When his team isn’t playing with enough passion, when the refs are getting complacent, when the crowd needs to be fired up, or when he’s just plain tired of watching his team not do what they’re supposed to be doing, he’ll pick a call to get angry about and take a technical foul. Sometimes he’ll even say to his assistant coach right beforehand, “You’re going to have to coach the rest of this game,” and then he’ll keep yelling until he gets a second technical and has to head back into the locker room.

The crazy thing is that this calculated explosion of anger often has the desired effect. The team wakes up. The refs start paying attention. The fans get drawn into the game.

Answer 53

From @dailystoic

Question 54

On the one hand, the Stoics were big believers in the power of reason. They believed we were rational creatures, capable of thinking away through all the distractions and impulses and biases of the mind and body. On the other hand, they knew that people were crazy—that our mind, our thoughts were hardly infallible and didn’t always have our best interests at heart.

Answer 54

From @dailystoic

Question 55

You gotta treat your brain like a dog you just got. The mind is infinite in wisdom. The brain is a stupid, little dog that is easily trained. Do not confuse the mind with the brain. The brain is so easy to master—you just have to confine it. And it’s done through repetition and systemization.

Answer 55

Jerry Seinfeld

Question 56

You deserve moments like that. Moments where you watch the snow fall. Moments where you sit quietly with a book. Moments where you look out the train window, not on a conference call, not checking email, not wondering how long until you arrive in the city, but a moment to check in with yourself, to think about your life and what you want to do with it. Moments with loved ones. Moments where you are grateful, connected, happy, creative, in the zone—doing whatever it is that you do best.

When the Stoics talk about stillness, they aren’t talking about some abstract notion. They are talking about maybe the most important thing you can be doing in your life. They are saying that all the “work” you are doing, all the thoughts you’re expending trying to get ahead, trying to force a breakthrough, are pointless.

The real way to charge ahead is to slow down. To clear your mind. To rejoice in perfect stillness, free of the future and the past, fully present and locked in. You can do it. You deserve that.

Answer 56

From @dailystoic

Question 57

what we are really rushing towards—with all deliberate speed—is death. That’s what he means when he says that we get death wrong. Death is not some distant thing in the future, some looming end date, to which the proper response is to try to squeeze in as much stuff as possible before it comes. Instead, death is something happening to you right now. It’s happening as you read this email (hope it’s been worth it!), it’s happening as you struggle to put your daughter’s shoes on so you can drop her off at school and then it’s happening still more as you sit down to that coffee meeting you rushed to even though you didn’t want to have it in the first place.

Answer 57

From @dailystoic

Question 58

The time that passes, Seneca reminds us, is death. It belongs to death. You’ll never get to live that has been lived back. So why are you rushing? Why are you thinking about the future at the expense of the present?

Life is too short to be lived in fast forward. Slow down. Breathe it in. Enjoy it.

Answer 58

From @dailystoic

Question 59

In Tibet, Buddhist monks make beautiful mandalas out of sand. They spend hours, even days, crafting these complex, geometric designs…only to wipe them clean and start over as soon as they’re finished.

Answer 59

From @dailystoic

Question 60

Marcus said again and again and again. The universe is nothing but change. Everything is constantly in flux. Nothing lasts. “Some things are rushing into existence, others out of it,” he reminded himself. “Some of what now exists is already gone. Change and flux constantly remake the world, just as the incessant progression of time remakes eternity.”

Answer 60

From @dailystoic

Question 61

we should not feel exasperated or frustrated by it. We should love the flow of it. It’s not work we’re doing, it’s art. Finish? To be finished would mean the end of this—the end of our lives.

Answer 61

From @dailystoic

Question 62

Stoics were far more interested in asking questions than assuming he knew the answer.

Answer 62

From @dailystoic

Question 63

Marcus Aurelius: Our worth is measured by what we devote our energy to.

Answer 63

From @dailystoic

Question 64

Part of being a philosopher is being a lifelong learner. School is never out for summer or spring or winter break. You can never be too old or too good at what you do. No, school is for life. And life is school. Learning is a daily thing, wisdom an endless pursuit. You never arrive, you never fill up, you never graduate. Because the world is always revealing new lessons…even in the oldest texts.

Answer 64

From @dailystoic

Question 65

Seneca said, there is no one more foolish than one who stops learning

Answer 65

From @dailystoic

Question 66

Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.

You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they’re human too.

Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life…you can manage this.

Answer 66

From @dailystoic

Question 67

Marcus talked about how our life takes on the color of our thoughts.

Answer 67

From @dailystoic

Question 68

Marcus talked about how our life takes on the color of our thoughts. If you hold a perpetually negative outlook, soon enough everything you encounter will seem negative. And in those moments when you don’t think you can do something, it’s very likely you won’t be able to do it.

Answer 68

From @dailystoic

Question 69

The same thing holds true for a positive outlook, however. Color your mind with the right thoughts, color them with what’s possible, and then whatever you’re trying to do—whether it’s trying to start a company or salvage a relationship or lose twenty pounds or quit drinking or make partner at your law firm—you’ll be able to manage it.

Answer 69

From @dailystoic

Question 70

Seneca would say that adversity is the fire that forges gold. But you could also say that it’s the means by which gold is tested—whether it’s revealed to be real or counterfeit.

Answer 70

From @dailystoic

Question 71

By being aware of all of the possibilities that lay before us, we can now proceed with our preparations. Who has time for anxiety? We should be fortifying ourselves for what may come. Why waste time preferring one outcome to another? We are ready for all of them equally.

Answer 71

From @dailystoic

Question 72

Why are you borrowing unhappiness? Why would you be miserable now just because you might be in the future?

Answer 72

From @dailystoic

Question 73

The thing about most things we label as “bad” is that they aren’t. They just are.

Answer 73

From @dailystoic

Question 74

People who actually work in the market are much less concerned with whether the market is “good” or “bad.” They know their job is to work with it as it is, no matter what it is, every single day. They know they have to adapt themselves to what is happening, make the most of it, struggle on and keep going.

Answer 74

From @dailystoic

Question 75

we have to measure our life by only one thing: virtue. Did we do right? Did we hold true? Whether we did so on an epic scale or in the quiet confines of our own home—that’s what matters. Socrates and Cato were great men, according to the Stoics, not because of the fame they achieved, but because of the unswerving commitment they had to principle. That this brought them fame was an accident—it was irrelevant.

Summum Bonum: the highest good. Virtue.

Answer 75

From @dailystoic

Question 76

It’s not things that upset us, Epictetus said, it’s our judgement about things. It’s what we make up about things that upsets us. It’s what we hear, not what people say, that is the problem.

So think about that today, think about that whenever you feel triggered or misunderstood or attacked. Is that actually what’s happening? Or are you just making that up? Is it likely they were saying anything close to what you heard? Or is your hearing precisely the source of the conflict? It usually is.

Answer 76

From @dailystoic

Question 77

The real question is why? They are like this because they are flawed people. Because they don’t fly as much as you. Because they are dealing with their own anxiety and worries, because maybe they have had a nightmare of a trip so far, because they have their own connection to make.

“They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil,” Marcus Aurelius would say of rude people in his time, because they don’t know any better, because they haven’t had the training or the awakening that you have had.

We can’t let this get to us. We can’t let them implicate us in ugliness. “To feel anger at someone,” Marcus wrote, “to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.” It’s also beneath you. It’s a sign that you haven’t properly prepared yourself for an experience that was—and remains—quite predictable.

Answer 77

From @dailystoic