Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation

designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life.

Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of

history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example,

and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.

For more, visit Dailystoic.com. If you want to make the world better, do this.

It's discouraging out there.

It's a sad state of affairs.

No one thinks this is how things should be.

No one thinks this is how society should work.

There's cruelty, there's stupidity, people being left behind.

We're failing to address basic problems. We're failing at basic functions.

Okay. So what do we do? After all, each of us is only an individual.

Well, the Stoics tell us that this is precisely the place to start. While others were obsessed with

working their land or breeding their horses, Epictetus said that he preferred to cultivate his own

improvement day to day. Rome was a dark and screwed up place then, especially in Nero's court

where he lived, but Epictetus turned himself into a bright light. He was a beacon

that shined then and continues to shine today. Stoicism is the art of getting active in your

own rescue, and in so doing, you end up rescuing others. By reforming and improving ourselves, we are reforming and improving the world because we are a part of the world.

To put a spin on one of Marcus Aurelius' great lines, what improves the bee improves the hive.

Look, we don't control what anyone else is going to do in 2026, but we can guarantee right

here, right now, that it won't be all bad. We can make sure right here, right now that things

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