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

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with 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 Markis Relius, Seneca, then 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 why you're upset. Like a lot of us, you wake up each day, a little frustrated and dismayed, or sometimes really frustrated and dismayed. Did someone really tweet that? Why can't these people get their act together? What's happening to this country? Why are my kids acting like that? What the hell is wrong with my neighbor?

Things may be baffling, and there may be real consequences to what's happening in the world right now, but it shouldn't surprise you that you're upset. Your attitude is largely responsible.

Or according to Marcus Aurelius, totally responsible. You take things, you don't control, and define them as good or bad, he said. And so of course, when bad things happen or the good ones don't, you blame the gods and feel hatred for the people responsible.

Or those you decide to make responsible. We have to remember what happens to us is objective. Most of it has nothing to do with us. Most of it is not anyone's fault, and most of it does not actually even harm us.

We just tell ourselves that it does. We desist on having an opinion. We insist on assigning blame. No wonder we're angry. No wonder we're upset. We inserted ourselves into this, we're demanding things we don't control be a certain way, and we are surprised when they aren't.

This is madness. You have to remember what Marcus Aurelius said that we must limit assigning good or bad or rather positive and negative to our own actions. Then we'll have no reason to curse anyone or anything, except of course ourselves.

Anyone can get lucky, not everyone can persevere. Success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life. That's Seneca on Providence 4-1.

I'm reading to you today from the Daily Stoke 366 Meditations on Wisdom Perseverance in the Art of Living by yours truly. My co-author and translator, Steve Enhancelman. You can get signed copies, by the way, in the Daily Stoke Store. Over a million copies of the Daily Stoke in print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it.

It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the best cellist. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading.

Perhaps you know people who have been extraordinarily lucky in life. Maybe they hit the genetic lottery or have skated through classes or careers with ease. Despite never planning, making reckless decisions, jumping from one thing to the next, they've somehow survived without a scratch.

There's even a saying, God favors fools. It's natural to be a bit envious of these folks. We want the easy life too or so we think. But is the easy life really that admirable? Anyone can get lucky. There's no skill to being oblivious and no one would consider that greatness.

On the other hand, the person who perseveres through difficulties, who keeps going when others quit, who makes it to their destination through hard work and honesty, that's admirable. Because the survival was the result of fortitude and resilience, not birthright or circumstance.

A person who overcame not just the external obstacles to success but has mastered themselves and their emotions along the way, that's impressive. The person who has been dealt a harder hand understood it and still triumph. That's greatness.

I say a version of this in some of my talks to, especially over the last year, when I've been talking to people about the pandemic, I go, look, it's good that it's hard. Is it true that, yes, some people, it hasn't been hard for them.

Some people have been extraordinarily lucky, skated through life, as we said, never had to stoop for a thing, never had to ask, never had to work.

Even when they do all the right things, they don't struggle, right? Sure. But it's good that it's hard because for the most part, it's the difficulty that weeds those people out.

Over a long enough timeline, if you're not resilient, if you're not tough, if you don't actually have competence, it's going to catch up with you. When things are hard, like in the middle of writing a book right now, it's kick my ass as they always do.

I go, look, it's good that it's hard. If it was easy, be a lot more books out there. And there's already a ton of books out there. So I go, it's good that it's hard. It keeps me honest for one.

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