January 24th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Push For Deep Understanding

"From Rusticus . . . I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with a rough understanding of the whole, and not to agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 1.7.3

From Book I of the Meditations, which begins with a "gratitude journal" of sorts - a listing of people to whom Marcus Aurelius was grateful for various lessons. From his teacher Quintus Iunius Rusticus, he learned to push for a deep understanding of all that he read and studied . . .

January 23rd Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - The Truth About Money

"Let's pass over to the really rich - how often the occasions they look just like the poor! When they travel abroad they must restrict their baggage, and when haste is necessary, they dismiss their entourage. And those who are in the army, how few of their possessions they get to keep . . ."

~ Seneca, On Consolation  to Helvia, 12.1.b-2

January 22nd Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - The Day In Review

"I will keep constant watch over myself and - most usefully - will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil - that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 83.2

January 21st Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - A Morning Ritual

"Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning:

* What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion?
* What for tranquility?
* What am I? A mere body, estate-holder, or reputation? None of these things.
* What then? A rational being.
* What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions.
* How did I steer away from serenity?
* What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, or uncaring?
* What did I fail to do in all these things?"

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.6.34-35

January 20th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Reignite Your Thoughts

"Your principles can't be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for its continually in your power to reignite new ones . . . It's possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did - that is how to restart life!"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.2

January 19th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Wherever You Go, There Your Choice Is

"A podium and a prison is each a place, one high and the other low, but in either place your freedom of choice can be maintained if you so wish."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.6.25

January 18th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - See the World Like a Poet and an Artist

"Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your final resting place gracefully, just a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it an grateful to the tree that gave it growth."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.48.2

January 17th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Reboot the Real Work

"I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small - your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don't you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and the right preparation? What is missing? The work is quite feasible, and is the only thing in our power . . . Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.19.29-34

January 16th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Never Do Anything Out of Habit

"So in the majority of other things, we address circumstances not in accordance with the right assumptions, but mostly by following wretched habit. Since all that I've said is the case, the person in training must seek to rise above, so as to stop seeking out pleasure and steering away from pain, to stop clinging to living and abhorring death, and in the case of property and money, to stop valuing receiving over giving."

~ Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 6.25.5-11

January 15th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Peace Is In Staying The Course

"Tranquility can't be grasped except by those who have reached an unwavering and firm power of judgment - the rest constantly fall and rise in their decisions, wavering in a state of alternately rejecting and accepting things. What is the cause of this back and forth? It's because nothing is clear and they rely on the most uncertain guide - common opinion."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 95.57b-58a

Of course, the Sage (Sapiens) would have this unwavering and firm power of judgment - in fact, the true Sage would have perfect power of Judgment - but I find it a constant struggle for anyone who has not attained this sort of enlightenment. 

January 14th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Cut The Strings That Pull Your Mind

"Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine than what causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that?"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.19

January 13th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Circle of Control

"We control our reasoned choice and all acts that depend on that moral will. What's not under our control are the body, and any of its parts, our possessions, parents, siblings, children, or country - anything with which we might associate."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.22.10

January 12th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - The One Path To Serenity

"Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night - there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else as your possession, surrendering all else to God and Fortune."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.4.39

January 11th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - If You Want To Be Unsteady

"For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will be agitated, fearful, and unstable."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.12

January 10th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - If You Want To Be Steady

"The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice, just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the raw material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marveling at the material! For if judgments about the material are straight that makes our choices good, but if those judgments are twisted, our choices turn bad."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 1.29.1-3

January 9th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - What We Control and What We Don't

"Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don't control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own."

~ Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1.1-2

January 8th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Seeing Our Addictions

"We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can't stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable."

~ Seneca, Moral Letters, 74.12b-13

January 7th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Seven Clear Functions of the Mind

"The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind's proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 4.11.6-7

The choice to do & think right.
The refusal of temptation.
Yearning to be better.
Repulsion of negativity, bad influences, and what isn't true.
Preparation for what lies ahead and whatever may happen.
Purpose is our guiding principle and highest priority.
Assent to what is and isn't in our control.

That's it.

January 6th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Where, Who, What, and Why

"A person who doesn't know what the universe is, doesn't know where they are. A person who doesn't know their purpose in life doesn't know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn't know any one of these things doesn't know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?"

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.52

January 5th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Clarify Your Intentions

"Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad."

~ Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 12.5

I note that on the surface, this seems perplexing advice to many beginning Stoics. Have an end in mind when you begin something? But surely that is an external, something beyond your control? So why? Ah, but there is a difference between aiming at a target (which is sensible) and assuming that you will or must hit the target (which is outside your control, ultimately, and therefore not a sensible thing to do). You do your best, do what you can to succeed, and then accept the fact that success is out of your control. But always aim for success.

January 4th Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - The Big Three

"All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way."

~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.6

The Big Three: Proper perception, right action, and radical acceptance.

January 3rd Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - Be Ruthless To The Things That Don't Matter

"How many have laid waste to your life when you weren't aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements - how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time!"

~ Seneca, On The Brevity of Life, 3.3b

Oh, this resonates so strongly with an introvert like myself!

January 2nd Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - "Education Is Freedom"

"What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated - tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say that only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.21-23a

January 1st Reading from The Daily Stoic (Round 2) - "Control and Choice"

"The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . ."

~ Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4-5