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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 with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steven Hanselman.

And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus 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.

We've been tested. Did you pass? The last half decade has tested us in many ways, a pandemic,

corresponding outbreaks of conspiracy theories and magical thinking, a booming economy, then a collapsing one.

Civil unrest, illiberalism, the passions of the mob, authoritarian leaders, natural disasters, slow moving crises.

We've been exposed to extreme temptations on both sides. Some people were radicalized, others apathetic,

some grew fat and lazy, others overworked and overstressed. It's been a lot.

Almost every day something new, new but also timeless. We have seen in just a short span all the hallmarks of the ancient world,

plagues, political violence, chaos, dysfunction, decadence. Seneca would say that adversity is the fire that forges gold,

but you could also say that it is the means by which gold is tested, whether it is revealed to be real or counterfeit.

The conservative writer David French expressed this well recently when he wrote,

in fact, there are ways in which the principle sins of the last four years are partisan mirror images of one another.

I've seen conservative Christians commit or rationalize grievous sins in the pursuit of virtuous causes.

And I've seen their opponents engage in terrible wrongs in their quest to defeat an unfit and cruel man.

Not every person has failed every test, of course. As we've learned who people really are,

and put to extreme tests, there are those who have withstood the storm. They've exhibited great virtue at great cost.

The Stoics didn't run away from difficulty or prosperity because they knew that on the other side of that experience was a verdict,

a statement about who you are, a statement about what you're capable of, proof of whether you really believe what you say you believe.

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