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Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty not just reading our daily meditation,

but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoke,

365 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living, which I wrote 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 Relius, Seneca,

and some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

This is the great equalizer. Imagine what it must have been like to be Alexander the Great conquering most of the world by the time you were 30 years old,

born into royalty, you surpass even the incredible accomplishments of your father to rule an empire of some 3000 miles.

Imagine what it must have been like to be Aussie Mandius, the King of Kings, surveying his mighty works.

Imagine what it must have been like to be Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, the head of an army of over a million men with an imperial treasury of unfathomable wealth.

Imagine walking into the Colosseum and knowing that everyone within it was your subject, that they worshipped you as a god, that everything you wanted could be yours.

The snap of a finger, imagine that, imagine having that. Now stop and think about where it got these men. Marcus Aurelius thought about it. He thought a lot about Alexander the Great who lived just a couple centuries before him who ruled over many of the same lands who experienced power and fame just as early as Marcus did.

And then what did Marcus wrote? He said, Alexander the Great and his Mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. Death was a great equalizer Marcus found. It was El Feneto.

The conclusion that rendered so many of the accolades and accomplishments he had piled up instantly worthless.

Marcus Aurelius wasn't alive to read Percy's poem about the statue of Ossi Mandeus, but he would have loved it. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless in bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.

Of course, you should strive to realize your potential. You should conquer and do and be great. You should just remember where to quote another poem, all the paths of glory ultimately end up.

There's no amount of doing that will allow you to escape death and that in death we are all equal small and powerless.

The smoke and dust myth.

Keep a list before your mind of those who burned with anger and resentment about something of even the most renowned for success, misfortune, evil deeds or any special distinction.

Then ask yourself how did that work out? Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth, trying to be legend.

Marcus Aurelius' meditations, 1227. That's from today's entry in the Daily Stoic.

In Marcus Aurelius' writings, he constantly points out how the emperors who came before him were barely remembered just a few years later.

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