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This is a no-brainer. Take five minutes each night to consciously recall the events of the day and review your actions. What did you do well? What not so? Did something upset you? Did you experience anger, envy, fear? How could you improve next time?
Play your role well by being the best you can be, focusing on what you control, and ultimately being a good person.
“Reflect on the other social roles you play,” Epictetus advises. “If you are a council member, consider what a council member should do. If you are young, what does being young mean, if you are old, what does age imply, if you are a father, what does fatherhood entail? Each of our titles, when reflected upon, suggests the acts appropriate to it.”
“Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’ But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.” – Marcus Aurelius
“People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out.” – Marcus Aurelius
We’re better off if we’re indifferent to fame and social status. After all, it’s not within our control.
What do others think of us? Not up to us. We must not mistake outward success with what’s truly valuable—patience, confidence, self-control, forgiv...
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By seeking social status, we give other people power over us. We have to act in a calculated way to make them admire us, and we must refrain from doing things in their d...
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Being the best we can be is what matters. Expressing our highest self in every moment. We shouldn’t seek thanks or recognition for doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is its own reward.
“It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won’t tire and give up, if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.” – Marcus Aurelius
Use reason rather than convention to choose what to spend your time on. The first thing to cut out is the news. “There is only one way to happiness,” says Epictetus, “and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” News is all about worrying about stuff outside our control. If you want to make progress as a person, then skipping the news is the perfect start. We only have a limited amount of time and energy, and news is not something an aspiring Stoic chooses to spend it on.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.”
“At the end of your time on this planet,” Ryan Holiday asks you, “what expertise is going to be more valuable—your understanding of matters of living and dying, or your knowledge of the ’87 Bears? Which will help your children more—your insight into happiness and meaning, or that you followed breaking political news every day for thirty years?”
Don’t envy the colleagues who shine bright at the office, as their success comes at the cost of life. The father who puts in eighty hours a week might be a hero at work, but he probably neglects his wife, son, and health.
the festival of life.
Do we spend our time with what we think is right? Or are we going to be the person praying to the doctor, willing to give all we have for a few more months? Are we going to be the person not ready to die when it’s time? Thinking there are so many more things we wanted to do in our time alive? Full of regrets of what we’ve missed?
“Yes, I made the most of it. I lived well. I savored every drop of my life.” It’s not about trophies and status, but about making progress as a person, growing into a mature human being, thriving in my deep values of calm, patience, justice, kindness, perseverance, humor, courage, and self-discipline.
