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, Stephen Hanselman.

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

Relias 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 to do when you have fallen short?

He had considered not going public with it.

He had wanted so badly to be able to keep saying to get credit for being the guy who said,

I'm 16 years sober, but he could not.

So in September of 2020, the actor, Dax Shepherd, opened up on his podcast about relapse

in.

The episode was titled Day 7, because after a streak of a decade and a half, he was effectively

back at the beginning.

Today, I have seven days, he was saying, with as much strength as he could muster.

It's actually beautiful.

Mark Relias himself said not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days

aren't packed with wise or moral actions, but to get back up when you fail to celebrate

behaving like a human, however imperfectly, and to fully embrace the pursuit you have

embarked on.

And maybe that's what you're having to come to terms with here, just a few weeks into

...