Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our

daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations

on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Heart of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator,

translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation

from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to

turn these words into works.

Take this seriously, but not too seriously. Punctuality is a matter of self-discipline, but

also respect. We must be aware of an in command of our schedule and the time we've allocated

to different people and activities. We also must care about how our decisions affect those

people, which is why it's not hard to imagine Marcus Aurelius or Kato being quite diligent

about when they arrived and when things started, even though they were powerful enough

to insist that others wait on them. But what about when they screwed up or lost track

of time? Did they whip themselves? Did they berate themselves for being lazy? No, hopefully

not. Gary Vaynerchuk recently asked about the Stoic take on punctuality for his podcast,

as well as the proper response for falling short of a goal to be more punctual. Well,

one thing we have to remember is that the Stoics did not regard guilt as a productive

emotion. It does nothing but send you plummeting down a spiral of self-loathing. None of that.

Be a better friend to yourself, as the Stoics would say. If you fall in short, acknowledge

that you slipped up and then with discipline and rigor put an end to that discussion and

commit yourself to getting back closer to the place you want to be. And that's the

balance I'm trying to strike in discipline as destiny. You want to be strict, but not

so strict that you miss the force for the trees, that you hurt yourself, that you end up

...