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

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 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, 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.

It's not unfair. It just is. It's amazing how often we find ourselves using those words, words like unfair, unlucky, frustrating, unfortunate, annoying, inconvenient.

To the Stoics, there was a word for these kinds of words, opinion. Things don't upset us, Epititus said, our judgment about them does.

Events are not fair or unfair. They just are. We make up that the stock market is good or bad, a bear or a bull. In truth, it's just doing what it does.

It's just a reflection of perceived values at a particular moment. The more we can catch ourselves from applying these labels, the happier we will be, the more options we'll have to.

But that's so hard, you say. Of course it is. It goes against every impulse. But still, we always have the ability to have no opinion, Markis says.

We can catch ourselves and think, it's not what I wanted, but that doesn't mean that I was unlucky. It's not how I would have treated someone, but that doesn't mean it's unfair. It just is.

It's the situation we're in. The hand we've been dealt, and if we spent less time calling it names, we'd have more energy and time to play the hand well to respond to the situation.

So remember this and adjust your vocabulary accordingly.

Corraling the unnecessary. This is today's entry in the Daily Stoic.

366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the art of living. I riff on this on another episode in the Daily Stoic Journal, but it's so important it's worth saying again.

It is said that if you want to have peace of mind, busy yourself with little, but wouldn't a better saying be to do what you must and as required of a rational being created for public life.

For this brings not only the peace of mind of doing few things, but the greater peace of doing them well.

Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility.

As a result, we shouldn't forget it every moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things?

And we must corrall not only the unnecessary actions, but unnecessary thoughts too.

So needless acts don't tag along after them. That's Marcus in meditations 424.

I read the Gregory Hayes translation before, but I thought I would give you the Robin Waterfield translation of that same line.

It's so good. He says, do little if you want to be content.

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