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Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoke.com.

Everything is breaking down. Nearly 2,000 years before Rudolph Clausius and Lord Kelvin first expressed the second law of thermodynamics.

Although there is some debate about whether a French physicist discovered it earlier, Marcus Aurelius was musing on the same idea.

Bear in mind, he wrote that everything that exists is already fraying at the edges and in transition, subject to fragmentation and to rot, or that everything was born to die.

That is to say, we are all subject to entropy. Science has since confirmed it to immutable law. We cannot eliminate disorder from the system no matter how much we try.

Everything we build, including ourselves, is constantly breaking down. What does this mean for us? First, it should bake in humility. We are building sand castles.

Even our real castles eventually fall into the sea or crumble into dust. Second, it demands presence. This moment is all we have. So enjoy it. Drink it in.

Appreciate it. But also be prepared to let it all go because it's going. Whether we like it or not. That's the law.

Epic Titus' line was how much longer are you going to wait until you demand the best for yourself? I think he was really saying how long are you going to wait until you demand the best of yourself?

And for that reason, we've created this new 14-day Stoic Challenge, which is going to kick off on January 1st. I hope you'll check it out. It's 14 days of awesome Stoic-based challenges.

It'll make you a better person, a better learner, a better thinker. Whatever it is, I think you'll like it. I'm going to be doing it. It's an awesome community that goes along with it. If you want to check it out, you can go to dailystoic.com slash challenge.

But remember, this closes on at 11.59pm on December 31st. If you want to kick the year off right, I hope you join us dailystoic.com slash challenge.

Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

Hey, I'm Brooke, and I'm Arisha, and we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and the biggest celebrities the world has ever seen.

Our newest series is all about the teen movie icon Gabrielle Union. After spending her childhood trying to assimilate and breaking into a racist industry, Gabrielle thought her success meant someone else had to fail.

But when she's faced with hard choices beyond her control, she realizes that the only way to find real success is to come together and build community.

In our series Gabrielle Union Bigger, Better, Better, we'll tell you how she shook off her need for perfection, found her true self, and created the life she always wanted. Follow Even the Rich, wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad-free on Amazon Music, or the Wondery app.

The 10% happier podcast hosted by me, Dan Harris, has won over arching message. Happiness is a skill. The mind is trainable. So why not get involved with this?

I used to be a fidgety skeptical news anchor, but after having a panic attack on national television, which was pretty inconvenient, I decided to change my life.

I went on a whole trip to learn everything I could about the human brain, human mind, human psyche, and now my job is to help you achieve some measure of peace and happiness in your own life.

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