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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 the 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.

The most important ritual you can practice this year, why did Marcus Aurelius spend those precious hours in his tent, writing by the lamp light, even on the nights and mornings he strained under the burdens of his wartime duties?

It wasn't for our benefit. No, he never expected meditations would see an audience. He was writing for himself, to himself, as a way to practice the principles of the philosophy we are still following today.

He was journaling as a means of self-improvement, as much as he was of self-expression. As Tim Ferris has said of his daily journaling habit, I don't journal to be productive.

I don't do it to find great ideas or to put down prose I can later publish. The pages aren't intended for anyone but me. I'm trying to figure things out. I'm just caging my monkey mind on paper so I can get on with my fucking day.

It's been exactly one year since we released the DailyStoic Journal, our attempt to create a modern, accessible, and beautiful medium through which to practice stoicism.

Epictetus said that every day we should keep our philosophical aphorisms and exercises at hand, that we should write them, read them aloud, talk to ourselves, and others about them.

That was the idea behind the DailyStoic Journal. One stoic prompt for each day to be journaled about, meditated on, in the morning and in the evening.

It's been wonderful to hear from the thousands upon thousands of people who have done precisely that for the last 365 days, and hear everything they've gotten out of the process.

Because a journal is a place to clarify your thoughts, to find some peace and quiet, to calm the negative energy swirling around in your head, and cope with stresses and struggles.

It's your loyal companion, it's your sound in the board, it's your guide.

And now, at the one year mark, it's time to start the process over again, or to start for the first time, if you've been keeping yourself on the sidelines.

To kick off the one year anniversary, we're giving away 50 free copies to the first people who enter this drawing.

We're also offering personalized and autographed copies for sale of the DailyStoic Journal at bookpeople.com.

For the next 52 weeks, we hope you'll follow along with the stoic theme we've set up for study.

We hope you'll take the time each morning and evening to follow along with the prompt we've designed, which pairs with the entry in that day's the DailyStoic, but can also be done independently.

And we hope this can become a lifelong habit for you, that you'll continue to return to these themes over and over again, can look back at the progress you've made each year.

Whether you need help ridding bad habits like complaining, procrastination, or hot temper, or you're looking to get stronger, wiser, and braver, this journal is where you can go to do it.

You'll find your own rhythm and what works best for you, but only if you start.

Refine as you go, but start.

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