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

but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoke,

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, Santa Cah,

then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

But what will we do if a few days ago, we talked about this paralyzing fear, the preemptive what about is him that holds people back from doing the right thing.

It's why we don't speak up about somebody on our side, why we don't take that career risk, why we don't see enough real leadership.

It was Santa Cah sticking with Nero out of fear that the next emperor might be worse.

It's the right endorsing illiberalism out of fear of left-wing illiberalism. It's the left breaking norms because they fear the right might do the same.

How do you cut through it? How do you resist the pull of this pathetic passive logic with this little reminder from Marcus Aurelius?

Never let the future disturb you, he said, you will meet it if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

It's absolutely true, the future might be bad, we might never know the unintended consequences of an action.

But does this excuse us from doing the wrong thing now? No, it does not. We can handle what the future brings.

If trouble knocks, it will find us home. Because, as we've said, we have a heart for any fate.

That's what so strange about Santa Cah's decision, he'd already survived, expertly navigated in fact four other emperors before Nero.

What was one more? He had the weapons to do the right thing, to bear the consequences that might have come from it. He just talked himself out of using it.

Don't do that, you're better, you're well armed, you got this.

The cost of accepting counterfeits. When it comes to money when we feel our clear interest, we have an entire art where the tester uses many means to discover the worth.

Just as we give great attention to judging things that might steer us badly. But when it comes to our own ruling principle, we on and doze off,

except in any appearance that flashes by without counting the cost. That's epic to this discourse. And today's entry, April 8th, from the Daily Stoic.

When coins were much more rudimentary, people had to spend a lot of time testing them to confirm the currency they had just received.

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