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Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good 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.

Magical thinking is not your friend. When things are hard, when things are scary, when we're tired, when we've had a run of bad luck, that's what it happens.

Magical thinking kicks in. This will all be over soon we convince ourselves. This one thing will solve all our problems. Our ex is going to walk through the door any minute now that pandemic will just disappear because we want it to.

This kind of thinking makes us feel better, sure, but it's not how it works. Not only is that not how it works, but the last few months have been a great example of the costs that come when magical thinking doesn't materialize and the chickens come home to roost.

When hope is your strategy, you get caught unprepared. When you expect problems to solve themselves, you are disappointed. When you don't listen to advice because it's unpleasant or it comes with difficult obligations.

When you focus on short-term solutions or you disregard risks, you'll find even bad situations can be made worse. This is why the Stoics insisted on objectivity and rationality.

Marcus reminds us that we have to see not what the enemy wants us to see, but what is really there? He works through in meditations, stripping things of the legends that encrust them, of removing the magical thinking that distorts our picture of the world.

You can't go around expecting Plato's Republic, he said, the world is harsh, problems are real, and no amount of hope makes it otherwise.

Santa Cus pre-metatoshio malorum is another exercise to combat magical thinking. Don't see what you want to see. He is saying, see the risks, see the dangers, prepare for the worst case scenario.

It might not come to pass, but that's better than the worst befallen you and you not being ready. You need to understand this just because you're tired, just because you're done with coronavirus already doesn't mean it's done with you.

Just because you have needs or your kids have needs doesn't change the risk profile. Just because you read some bullshit on the internet doesn't invalidate the overwhelming consensus.

Our thinking, and this is a core Stoic teaching, does not change reality. Things are what they are, life is what it is, and it must be faced with courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom. That's our only way through.

And of course I think our pre-metatoshio malorum coins are a great example. If you are prone to some of this magical thinking, I think rooting yourself in reality as Santa Cus says, all the terms of the human condition should be before our eyes.

And it's one of the ones I have sitting on my desk. I look at it constantly, check that out at store.dailystod.com.

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