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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 dailystoke.com.

Pity the ego. The stoics were not unacquainted with awful people. They saw tyrants, they saw cheats, they saw toxic ego maniacs and insatiable ambitions.

And what was their reaction to most of these people? Aside from the general weariness and desire not to be corrupted by them, mostly the stoics pitted these types.

Certainly this is how Marcus Aurelius wrote about someone like Alexander the Great. He almost seems sad for him. Like, dude, how did you think this was going to end?

Did you think conquering the world was going to make you happy? Did you actually think that fame and glory would fill the whole in your soul?

There's a wonderful encapsulation of this idea. In the 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run by Bud Schuylberg, who, if his later novels aren't any indication, was familiar with Marcus' writing.

In Sammy, the screenwriter Kit questions the anger and animus directed at Sammy Glick, a hopelessly ambitious producer who constantly hurts and betrays everyone he works with in the pursuit of his goals.

Speaking of how they might react to someone with polio, she says, we're sorry for him because a germ he didn't have anything to do with God inside of him and twisted him out of shape, maybe we ought to feel the same way about guys with twisted egos.

Which is a remarkably wise and philosophical attitude. Ego maniacs don't make it easy for us to pity them, neither do tyrants and cheats, especially when their success comes at our expense.

But the truth is they can't help themselves and it's not any fun to be them, not at all.

And just the heads up, Ego is the enemy, my book, I think it's one of my best books, is 99 cents on Amazon right now. It's only for a limited time. If you want to check it out, give it as a gift. It'll never be cheaper than this.

Ebook only iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever you get ebooks, it's 99 cents. But also along with the Amazon discount, you can get $6 off our Ego is the enemy coin. I carry one of these with me everywhere I go.

If you use the code Ego coin, and then you can get $10 off our Ego is the enemy print. I have this hanging in my office with the code Ego print at checkout, the Daily Stoic Store. Just go to dailystoic.com slash store.

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