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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 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 you need to know about most people, it's true as Markis Relius reminded himself,

today you will meet jealous people, selfish people, mean people, shameless people, even stupid people.

It can be easy to get the wrong idea, though, especially when you're taking guidance from Markis' writings,

because yes, such people do exist and have always existed.

And yes, if you ever find yourself in an exalted position like Markis, there will be a disproportionate number of those people around you on a regular basis.

But it's important to remember that in the normal world, in our world, most people are not those people.

As the wonderful children's book Most People reminds us, most people love to laugh and smile.

Most people love to see other people laugh and smile to, most people are good people.

And one of Markis' most famous passages he indirectly confirms is true.

After bumping into a particularly frustrating person, he asks himself,

is a world without frustrating people possible? No, he realizes.

So understand he says that this is just one of the allotted number and let that give you some solace.

But this is the trick, right? It only provides you solace if you understand that such people are in the minority.

The minority that most people are like you or at a minimum, most people are at least trying to be like you.

And that's one of the best lines in most people as well.

It says, a person who is frowning and mad or sad or mean is like a sour grape in a bunch of sweet grapes.

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