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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 Marks, Relious, 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.

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Listen to the lead starting five on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast.

Life is not a victory march. It would be wonderful if life were easy.

It'd be wonderful if things went our way every time. If people we loved didn't die. If plans didn't fail.

If evil didn't exist. If plans didn't crash and pandemics and wildfires didn't rage.

Marcus Aurelius described life as warfare and a journey far from home. Leonard Cohen was speaking about love, but also life when he said that it was not a victory march, but a cold and a broken hallelujah.

A stoic is resilient because they have to be. Life is not a soft affair. It challenges us. It rolls obstacles in our path.

While there may be victory marches in our future, there will also be inevitably defeats and retreats, failures and foibles and funeral processions.

We will suffer. We will grieve. We will screw up and be screwed over. But we keep going because that is our fate because it's our only option.

We move forward. We move with growing confidence in ourselves and our ability to adapt and to grow and to survive. How? Well, we've been there before. Because of what we've been through, we are tougher as a result. More experienced as a result. And wiser as a result.

Everlasting good health. And I'm reading to you today from the Daily Stoke 366 Meditations on Wisdom Perseverance in the Art of Living by yours truly.

My co-author and translator, Steve Enhancelman, you can get signed copies by the way. In the Daily Stoke store, over a million copies of the Daily Stoke in print now.

It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the bestseller. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well.

But let's get on with today's reading. I tell you you have only to learn to live like the healthy person does. Living with complete confidence. What confidence? The only one worth holding. And what is trustworthy unhindered cannot be taken away our own reasoned choice. That's epictetus's discourses 326.

As the Stoke say repeatedly, it's dangerous to have faith in what you do not control. But your own reasoned choice. Well, for now, that is in your control.

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