Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our

daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations

on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator,

translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation

from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world

to turn these words into works.

You are strong. You just haven't been tested. In August of 1967, Lieutenant Dave Carey

was shot out of his A4 Skyhawk over Vietnam. Soon enough, he found himself a prisoner in

Hanoi, where he would be subsequently beaten and tortured and placed into solitary confinement.

For six years, he languished there, kept going only by the comrades around him and the

occasional picked me up from the Stoics. As Carey explained in an incredible episode

of the Daily Stoic Podcast, fellow prisoners would tap Stockdale wants you to remember

what Epictetus said. And through his adjoining cell, Carey came to understand that this meant

to focus on what you control, focus on the choices you can make. And that's what he did,

surviving and enduring and eventually making it through. How did he do it? Carey said

that almost every single day since he returned home, someone had asked him where he found

the strength, wondering whether he was superhuman. He most definitely is not, he explained

on the podcast. And in fact, he wants everyone to know you have the same kind of strength that he

does. You have the same capacity and courage and endurance that he does. People just don't know

this because they haven't been tested. The world is a tough place. Things will go wrong. We will

suffer and deal with adversity. We should not be afraid of that though, Carey says. In fact,

that fear and that doubt, that's the thing that will hold you back. Know that you've got the

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