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Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation,

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman.

And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epititus Markis Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me,

and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Before you go anywhere, remember this. The people on your flight tomorrow will be slow and rude. They will recline their seat on you. They will clog the aisles. They will watch videos on their phone without earbuds in. They will fight you for the armrests, even though they obviously belong to the person in the middle seat. They will take too long in the bathroom. They will take forever to the front.

They will take forever to deplane. They will not care that you have a connection to make worse. They may not even wear a mask. They will do all these things and more. Do you understand that? No amount of frustrated, muttering, anxiety, impatient, and dirty looks will fix it. It's just how it is. Why are they like this? They are like this because they are flawed people, because they don't fly as much as you, because they are dealing with their own anxiety and worries, because maybe they have had a nightmare of a trip so far.

They have their own connection to make. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil Marcus Aurelius would say of rude people in his own time, because they don't know any better, because they haven't had the training or the awakening that you have had.

We can't let this get to us. We can't let them implicate us in ugliness. To feel anger at someone Marcus Aurelius wrote is to turn your back on him. This is unnatural. It's also beneath you. It's a sign that you haven't properly prepared yourself for the day.

It's a sign that you haven't prepared yourself for the experience that was and remains quite predictable. Flying is a pain.

Being trapped in a thin metal tube with a diverse collection of humanity under stressful conditions. It's not going to be fun. It's not going to bring out the best in people.

You can't control that. You can, however, control whether it brings out the worst in you.

Righteousness is beautiful. This is today's entry in the daily stoic.

366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance in the art of living by yours truly.

Then what makes a beautiful human being? Isn't it the presence of human excellence?

Young man, if you wish to be beautiful, then work diligently at human excellence. And what is that? Observe those who praise you without prejudice, the just or the unjust, the just, the even tempered or the undisciplined, the even tempered, the self-controlled or the uncontrolled, the self-controlled.

In making yourself that kind of person, you will become beautiful. To the extent you ignore these qualities, you will be ugly, even if you use every trick in the book to appear beautiful.

That's from Epictetus's Discourses 3-1.

Contemporary notions of beauty are ridiculous. Our standards for what's attractive are incredibly unstuck.

In what we prize and extol things, people have almost no control over. High cheekbones, complexion, height, piercing eyes.

Is it really beautiful to win the genetic lottery? Or should beauty be contingent on the choices, actions and attributes we develop?

And even keel, a sense of justice, a commitment to duty. These are beautiful traits, and they go much deeper than appearances.

Today, you can choose to be without prejudice, to act with justice, to keep an even keel, to be in control of yourself, even when that means dedication and sacrifice.

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