The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living

by Ryan Holiday

Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people’s jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good.

A long To-Do list seems intimidating and burdensome—all these things we have to do in the course of a day or a week. But a Get To Do list sounds like a privilege—all the things we’re excited about the opportunity to experience.

Whatever humble art you practice: Are you sure you’re making time for it? Are you loving what you do enough to make the time? Can you trust that if you put in the effort, the rest will take care of itself? Because it will. Love the craft, be a craftsman.

“But what does Socrates say? ‘Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.’”

Like a start-up, we begin as just an idea: we’re incubated, put out into the world where we develop slowly, and then, over time, we accumulate partners, employees, customers, investors, and wealth. Is it really so strange to treat your own life as seriously as you might treat an idea for a business? Which one really is the matter of life and death?

As we begin to make progress in our lives, we’ll encounter the limitations of the people around us. It’s like a diet. When everyone is eating unhealthy, there is a kind of natural alignment. But if one person starts eating healthy, suddenly there are opposing agendas. Now there’s an argument about where to go for dinner.

The more forgiving and tolerant you can be of others—the more you can be aware of your various privileges and advantages—the more helpful and patient you will be.

That’s Stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing—far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.

Have you ever heard the expression “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”? The idea is not to settle or compromise your standards, but rather not to become trapped by idealism.

“As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.”

Pragmatism has no such hang-ups. It’ll take what it can get. That’s what Epictetus is reminding us. We’re never going to be perfect—if there is even such a thing. We’re human, after all. Our pursuits should be aimed at progress, however little that it’s possible for us to make.

You become the sum of your actions, and as you do, what flows from that—your impulses—reflect the actions you’ve taken. Choose wisely.