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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 Steve Enhancelman.

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.

You get bad breaks and good ones. In the year 41 AD, Seneca was banished by the Emperor Claudius for supposedly sleeping with the sister of Caligula.

We don't know if he was completely innocent of the accusation, but we do know that the incident was hardly an exemplar of justice.

The historian Sutonius tells us that Seneca's charge was vague and the accused was given no opportunity to defend himself.

It was a bad break that would cost Seneca eight years of his life in exile.

In 49 AD, as Seneca tired of the burden and the distance of his punishment, he was suddenly recalled to Rome by the wife of the Emperor in order to serve as the tutor of her son.

In the words of the historian Richard M. Gumier, fortune whom Seneca, as a stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.

Within a few years, Seneca would be one of the richest men in Rome, his fame and power assured influencing world events with the snap of his fingers.

Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks, heartbreaking bad breaks, and it also gives us incredibly lucky breaks.

Sometimes the ball that should have gone in bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it goes through the net.

When we are going through a bad break, we should never forget fortune's power to redeem us.

When we're singing in the roses, we should never forget how easily and how quickly we can be humbled.

Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn't. The only thing we can do is be ready for either one.

A morning ritual.

Now we've done this list of questions before from from Epictetus, but I think it's so good it's worth repeating again.

Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning. What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? What for tranquility?

What am I? A mere body, a stateholder or a reputation? None of these things. What then a rational being? What then is demanded of me?

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