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Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

What we do in life does not echo in eternity. In the movie Gladiator Maximus, the protégé of Marcus Aurelius, says famously, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

It's a powerful, inspiring line, one the average viewer might assume that Marcus Aurelius agrees with in real life.

Funnily enough, in his actual writings, Marcus Aurelius could not have come out more strongly against this idea.

He says at one point in meditations that people out for posthumous fame forget that the generations to come will be the same annoying people they know now, and just as mortal.

But even if they weren't, he asks, what good would it do you? You're out of step neglecting the gifts of nature to hang on someone's words in the future.

Indeed, not only do people deprive themselves of the wonder of the present in order to hopefully be remembered in the future, far too many people, especially leaders, do themselves and those they serve a disservice by performing for history.

Instead of focusing on what they can do right now, what little progress or improvements they can make, they get caught up in the idea of a grand sweeping legacy, or they play things safe, not wanting to take risks that could turn out badly.

At the expense of possible opportunities, they'll never even know they missed.

We want to do the right thing today because it's the right thing. We should pursue excellence because excellence is intrinsically valuable, not because we want to be admired after we're dead and gone.

Forget echoing in eternity, just speak loudly enough to be heard right now, or better yet, let your actions do the talking.

Epic Titus' line was how much longer are you going to wait until you demand the best for yourself?

I think he was really saying, how long are you going to wait until you demand the best of yourself?

And for that reason, we've created this new 14-day Stoic Challenge, which is going to kick off on January 1st.

I hope you'll check it out. It's 14 days of awesome Stoic-based challenges.

It can make you a better person, a better learner, a better thinker. Whatever it is, I think you'll like it.

I'm going to be doing it. It's an awesome community that goes along with it. If you want to check it out, you can go to dailystoic.com slash challenge.

But remember, this closes on at 11.59 pm on December 31st. If you want to kick the year off right, I hope you join us.

dailystoic.com slash challenge.

Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music App today.

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