June 10th: You Can Do It

“If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don’t imagine it impossible—for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.19

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 9th: Solve Problems Early

“There is no vice which lacks a defense, none that at the outset isn’t modest and easily intervened—but after this the trouble spreads widely. If you allow it to get started you won’t be able to control when it stops. Every emotion is at first weak. Later it rouses itself and gathers strength as it moves along—it’s easier to slow it down than to supplant it.”
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 116.2b–3a

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 7th: Finding the Right Mentors

“We like to say that we don’t get to choose our parents, that they were given by chance—yet we can truly choose whose children we’d like to be.”
—Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 15.3a

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 6th: When To Stick and When To Quit

“Think of those who, not by fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun.”
—Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 2.6b

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 5th: Blow Your Own Nose

“We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool, don’t you have hands? Or could it be God forgot to give you a pair? Sit and pray your nose doesn’t run! Or, rather just wipe your nose and stop seeking a scapegoat.”
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.16.13

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 4th: This Is What We’re Here For

“Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.”
—Seneca, On Providence, 5.7b–8

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman

June 2nd: Plato’s View

“How beautifully Plato put it. Whenever you want to talk about people, it’s best to take a bird’s-eye view and see everything all at once—of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets—all blended together and arranged in a pairing of opposites.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.48

Excerpt From
The Daily #Stoic
Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman