#TheDailyStoic
​In one of his letters, Seneca tells us of an old Roman pleasantry that friends would exchange when greeting each other: “If you are well,” one would say after inquiring how someone was doing, “it is well and I am also well.”

It’s a nice little custom, isn’t it? If you’re good, I’m good, and everything is good. Nothing else matters.

But of course, because this is Seneca, he couldn’t just leave it there. In fact, telling us about this old expression was just a device to make a point. A better way to say it, he writes, is “‘If you are studying philosophy, it is well.’ For this is just what ‘being well’ means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly, and the body, too, though it may be very powerful, is strong only as that of a madman or a lunatic is strong.”

The point is that to the Stoics, the practice and study of philosophy was the only way to make sure all was well, no matter what was happening in the world. At war like Marcus Aurelius? Study philosophy in your tent at night. Unable to submit to Caesar’s tyranny like Cato? Read a little Socrates before your dramatic suicide. Shot down over Vietnam like James Stockdale? Say to yourself, as he did, “I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.” As in…even in a POW camp, I can still practice and pursue philosophy…and be well for it!

Nobody knows what the day or the week has in store for us. As much as we take care of ourselves and eat well, so much of our health is outside of our control. But the one way we can make sure that we are always well, that we are always getting better (mentally, spiritually, if not physically) is by the books we read, the questions we ponder, and the conversations we have.

Now get studying!

#TheDailyStoic

​Marcus Aurelius wasn’t born Marcus Aurelius (literally, his name was Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus). Epictetus wasn’t born a sage–to say he was would be to deprive him of the enormous credit due to a man who went from a lowly slave to a wise and powerful philosopher.

No, becoming a Stoic takes work. It takes practice.

We have been talking this month about the idea of spiritual exercising–a term coined by Pierre Hadot, a great writer about the Stoics. Philosophy wasn’t this thing you were taught he said, it was a thing you did. Through reading, through journaling, through practice in the real world.

Just as one becomes strong through lifting weights or skilled at woodworking through time in their workshop, we become adept and able at philosophy through a similar process. Stoicism is designed to be a practice and a routine. It’s not a philosophy you read once and magically understand at the soul-level. No, it’s a lifelong pursuit that requires diligence and repetition and concentration. That’s one of the benefits of the page-a-day book (with monthly themes) format we organized the Stoics into in The Daily Stoic (which is $1.99 this week as an ebook) and with the Daily Stoic Journal (which has daily entries and weekly themes–and also a cool new leather cover).

The idea is to put one thing up for you to review—to have at hand—and to fully digest. Not in passing. Not just once. But every single day over the course of a year, and preferably year in and year out. It’s also the benefits of what we do in our Daily Stoic challenges (which you can see here).

Marcus would say that the student of philosophy is like a boxer. Through training and practice and repetition, a boxer becomes one with their weapon. And through training and practice and repetition—reading, writing in a journal, listening to Stoics in conversation—we become one with our philosophy. So make that your goal this year. To create a practice. To get the reps. To make Stoicism a part of your life and your mind.

#TheDailyStoic
When he was starting out in Hollywood, Judd Apatow began to have panic attacks. The stress of rewriting a script. Getting a film in on time. Managing all the moving pieces on a project. He felt the enormity of the pressure and like a lot of us, he took that to an irrational extreme.

If this movie is bad, he would think, it’s all my fault. He would look around at the actors on set and think to himself, I can take them all down if I don’t make this scene historically great. As he thought those kinds of thoughts, his temperature would begin to rise, his heart would start pounding, and his surroundings would begin to feel like they were closing in on him.

As Apatow experienced more and more panic attacks, he learned the right way and the wrong way to deal with them. As he says in the book Sicker in the Head,

“The secret was you don’t try not to have a panic attack, because that makes it worse. You don’t run away from it. You allow yourself to feel it, and you remind yourself that everything will be fine, that nothing’s going to happen. When you try to stop it, it’s like taking a mirror and smashing it on the ground and stamping on the bits and creating a thousand mirrors.”
The Stoics would say panic, stress, and anxiety are feelings, and you can’t prevent them from happening. And if you try to suppress these emotions, like stuffing junk in your closet, it eventually comes exploding out. The bill inevitably comes due…and with interest attached.

Stoicism, as we’ve said, is not about suppressing your emotions. That’s not what a Stoic does. A Stoic learns to feel and deal with their emotions. As we’ve talked about, a Stoic seeks out help (here’s our popular video on the topic). As Apatow did, they go speak to a therapist. They notice patterns and understand how they go–and where the offramps are. As Marcus Aurelius did, process things in your journal. Whether it’s panic attacks, stress, anxiety, or some other destructive emotion—you can’t keep it from happening from sheer will or discipline.

But you can get better at responding when it happens. You can become a better friend to yourself, as Seneca told us to. You can pick yourself back up off the floor and keep going, a little wiser, with a little more perspective than last time.

#TheDailyStoic
We worry about the future. About who might win an election we’re closely watching. About what some foreign leader might do. About the markets and your portfolio. About the climate. It’s so uncertain, we think, unpredictable and potentially overwhelming.

But is it really?

“If you’ve seen the present,” Marcus Aurelius writes in his own anxious and scary times, “then you’ve seen everything–as it’s been since the beginning, as it will be forever. The same substance, the same form. All of it.”

And he’s not wrong. All the things you’re worried about potentially happening in the future are in fact happening right now somewhere in the world. All the things you’re not sure you could handle…people have been handling since the beginning of time. Nothing new looms, only reruns of what you’ve already experienced or read about in the annals of history.

You’ll meet this ‘future,’ Marcus reminds himself, with the same weapons you’ve met everything else in your life with. Whatever is coming, you can handle…because it’s already here, because it’s always been with you.

#TheDailyStoic
There's no such thing as “quality” time.

Time is time.

In fact, as Jerry Seinfeld has said, garbage time—eating cereal with your kids late at night, laying around with your spouse on the couch—is actually the best time.

The Stoics would say that all time is created equal. The present moment is the same for everyone, Marcus Aurelius said. It's what you do with it that makes it special. Not where. Or for how long. Or at what cost.

Forget chasing huge experiences. Realize there is no such thing as “quality” time. Embrace “garbage” time. Because when you do, you end up getting the best kind of time there is. You get the moment right in front of you. That’s what Marcus meant when he said, “Give yourself a gift: the present moment.” Cherish it.

It’s all we have.

#TheDailyStoic
Marcus Aurelius asked,

When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?
So you did a good thing, he’s saying, why do you need to be thanked for it? It felt good to help someone else, why do you need credit or recognition or gratitude? The same goes for hard work and accomplishments. Do you really need people to know what you did? Do you really need the likes and the comments and the cheers and, as Marcus put it, the clacking of their tongues and hands?

The answer is that you don’t. In fact, it’s usually better not to get credit (because the ‘right thing’ is not always appreciated, because other people might get jealous, because it puffs up your ego).

Think about that today, and remember it always. You don’t need credit. That’s not what should motivate you. Do the right thing because it’s right. Pursue excellence because that’s just what you do. Leave the recognition and the rewards alone