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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,

365 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.

What are you doing? We find ourselves baffled by our politicians, by our bosses, by our leaders. Why don't they do something?

Why don't they just do the right thing? Why are they always putting profits over people? Why do they always hedge their bets?

You say this as you sit there in a job you've hated for the last five years. You say this when you avoid talking politics with your family because it's unpleasant.

You say this when you make all sorts of compromises and trade-offs that you know are not right.

You say this while you're wearing clothes made in a sweatshop, pay your employees less than you could afford to travel the countries with horrible human rights records,

drive cars that are horrible for the environment. It's not that you're a bad person. It's that you have a reason for all those things we all do.

We have a million reasons. Then we like to direct a very pointed, very black and white, accusing finger, and everyone else who dares to do the same.

Marcus Aurelius reminds us that what other people do and say is not important. Or rather, it's not as important as what we do and we say.

What do we have control over? Those politicians, thousands of miles away who are just barely interested in our votes, or our own decisions and actions on a day-to-day basis.

Don't waste your time in vain against the hypocrisy of others. Start with the hypocrisy in your own home because there's plenty of it there.

What are you doing today, tomorrow? What injustices are you resolving in your own life? What evil are you ceasing to participate in? What good are you doing?

What courage are you showing? Your answers, not politicians or leaders or your neighbors or your bosses are what counts.

Matters what you do. You do now.

Make the words your own. Many words have been spoken by Plato, Xenocrysipus, Posidonius, and by a whole host of equally excellent stoics.

I'll tell you how people can prove their words to be their own by putting into practice what they have been preaching.

That's Ceneca from Moral Letters translated in today's entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living.

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