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

You'll be happier if you're realistic. We tell ourselves that if we just get paid or get promoted, we'll stop being so miserable at work.

Or we dream for months in advance about some vacation to paradise, only to find once we arrive that the hotel was not quite as glamorous as the photographs on the website implied.

Maybe we do get that promotion or that raise and it does alleviate some old problems. Then suddenly there are new ones like jealous co-workers or additional responsibility.

Our rosy expectations set us up to be disappointed.

Our expectation that the modern world will not have any problems is why the so-called first world problems are so vexing.

Isn't everything supposed to be awesome considering all that we've accomplished?

People tend to think only about how amazing things are going to be, only to find that reality is more complicated.

This gap between what we told ourselves things are going to be like and how they actually are, that is the source of so much unhappiness and misery in people's lives.

It's the reason that so many of us walk around frustrated rather than grateful and relieved.

And actually a problem like that is something the Stoics zeroed in on resolving.

Because the source of it isn't the outside world. It's our thoughts about the world that are the issue.

Whenever you are about to start on some activity, remind yourself what the activity is like, was epic teetuses advice.

If you go out to bathe, you said picture what happens at a bathhouse. The people who splash you or jossal you or talk rudely or steal your things.

In this way you will be more prepared to start the activity by telling yourself at the outset, I want to bathe and I also want to keep my will in harmony with nature.

Make this your practice in every activity. Basically he was saying pre-metatoschio malorum.

Think about how things might be in advance. Don't tell yourself how you want them to be. Don't lie to yourself as a form of motivation.

Be honest, be clear, be realistic. If they end up being better than you expect, as things often can be, then wonderful. Enjoy the treat you set up for yourself.

If they end up being anything else, well, you're prepared now, aren't you? Better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly surprised, better to be realistic than delusional. That's the idea.

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