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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,

365 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steven Hanselman.

And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus 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.

How will you measure your life? It's tempting natural even to measure your life by what you've accomplished.

How many battles you've won, how much money you've made, the pleasure you've had, all the honors you've received.

But the Stoics know that ultimately these things are meaningless. In the end, they are nothing.

What happened to Alexander the Great Marcus asked? He was buried in the same ground as his Mule Driver.

Look at the things, the conquerors and the tyrants and the perverts have given up to get what they chased, he said,

Where is the applause now? What is that applause now? What was the cheering ever really? Dust, nothing, clacking of tongues.

No, we have to measure our life by only one thing. Virtue. Did we do right? Did we hold true?

Whether we did so on an epic scale or in the quiet confines of our own home, that's what matters.

Socrates and Cato were great men according to the Stoics, not because of the fame they achieved, but because of the unswerving commitment they had to principle.

That this brought them fame was an accident, it was irrelevant. Some of them, the highest good virtue, that's what we measure a life by.

In these trying times, in the good times too, what did we do for others? Did we embody good character? Did we embody the philosophy?

Not just talk about it. That's what success is. That's what we're reaching for.

Fuelling the Habit Bonfire. This is today, May 13th entry from the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom perseverance in the art of living.

Written published by yours truly, you can get an audiobook, physical, we even have a leather bound edition in the Daily Stoic store.

Here is epictetus. Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, running by running.

Therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it. If you don't want to do it, don't, but make a habit of something else instead.

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