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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day 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 DailyStoic.com.

Here's where you'll find true duty.

As we've discussed before, John Adams was one of those people who's racing mind gave him little rest.

He was always doing, doing, doing, and more dangerously always thinking, thinking, thinking.

His friends saw the pain this caused him and he saw it himself. As he said many times, all he wanted was tranquility of mind stillness, but it was elusive.

Only later in life after the loss of his wife in the end of his career was he able to slow down a little only in the process of reading and rereading some of the classic texts of ancient Rome that Adams finally began to achieve the mental breakthroughs he had craved for so long.

And when he did, things began to change. In 1819, the morning after a horrific march storm, Adams was hit with an epiphany.

Despite the fact that the storm had ruined his farm's harvest, all he could see was beauty. He could see it in the utterly ordinary and plain winter landscape.

As he wrote, the icicles on every sprig glowed in all the luster of diamonds. Every tree was a chandelier of cut glass. I have seen a queen of France with diamonds upon her person, and I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not make an impression on me equal to that presented by every shrub.

The whole world was glittering with precious stones. It's beautiful, isn't it? It's reminiscent of Marcus Aurelius' writing, so vividly of the ordinary way that baking bread splits in places in those cracks while not intended in the baker's art, catch our eye and serve to stir our appetite.

Or as he said, the charm and allure of nature's process, the stalks of ripe grain bending low, the frowning brow of the lion, the foam dripping from the bore's mouth.

There's no anguish, despair, or discontent present in the marvelling mind. There's complete tranquility and stillness. It's brilliance, really, and it's always within our reach.

Beauty surrounds us, the flame dancing atop the candle's wick, the arm hairs standing up when it's a little colder than usual, the break lights moving in perfect unison when green turns yellow, the leaves floating swirling and bouncing off the sidewalk on a crisp fall morning.

The rising sun's light piercing through your curtains and waking you up before the alarm was supposed to, the beautiful and the simple, the extraordinary and the mundane, never assume to comprehend, instead marvel and delight.

In this moment, nothing is better, nothing is prettier, and life is good.

Thanks for listening to another episode of The Daily Stoke. It's mind-blowing to me now that we are well over 30 million downloads at this show.

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Thanks again for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast.

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