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

really a 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.

You are not alone. Sometimes it can feel like you're a solitary warrior. Certainly, Markis Arelius' meditations reads like that at times.

He feels like the last honest man, the last good man, the only one keeping the faith. We often feel that way about the cause we're fighting for.

We feel that way about the trauma we carry from childhood, about our fears, that it's just us against the world.

But this is wrong. You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, James Baldwin wrote,

but then you start reading and you realize, as Baldwin did, that books taught him that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

And that's sort of the irony of meditations. The private diary intended for no one manages to appeal to the many.

It becomes universal. Markis's life in pain and loss were so unique and yet so relatable.

If only other emperors had written such a book or if anyone had, maybe he could have read it and felt a little less alone, comforted by that sense of sympathy of his timeless connections to such a diverse world.

Well, it's not too late for us. Like James Baldwin, you got to read to free yourself from the yoke of doom and gloom that finds its way around your neck when you think you're the only one that's ever worn it.

You have to get outside yourself. You have to enter other people's minds and let them enter yours, which is something Marcus Aurelius talks about.

You have to understand you're not alone. Your struggles are shared. There are people struggling even more than you are. Connect with them even if they're long dead.

And if you can try to put some of your own thoughts out there because it may just help someone else who needs it.

Pay your taxes. Nothing will ever befall me that I will receive with gloom or bad disposition. I will pay my taxes gladly.

Now, all the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life, things which my dear Lucilius, you should never hope for exemption or seek escape.

Seneca moral letters 962. As your income taxes come due, you might be like many people complaining at what you have to fork over to the government.

40% of everything I make goes to these people and for what? First off, taxes go to a lot of programs and services that you almost certainly take for granted.

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