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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life.

On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

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You must attack the day.

In Meg Mason's hilarious and moving novel, Sorrow and Bliss, and I interviewed her recently on the Daily Stoke Podcast, Patrick tries to convince his wife Martha, who struggles with depression to get up and have some fun.

We have to attack the day he tells her, which was a reference to a podcast they had listened to, and in it, the guests had explained the need to attack the day so it doesn't attack you.

This becomes a helpful though somewhat contentious mantra between the two characters, as it was in its own way for Marcus Aurelius.

Isn't that what Marcus Aurelius is doing at the opening of Book V of Meditations, trying to convince himself that he has to get up and do what his nature demands, that he has to attack the dawn to get what he can from life.

And yet this was also quite difficult for Marcus due to his very real struggles with insomnia.

Of course, in the ancient world, they had no understanding of these things, be they depression or insomnia.

They thought it was all simply a matter of willpower, which it certainly is not. In the novel, Patrick thinks he can simply cheer or encourage his wife into getting it together, when in fact it's so much more complicated than that.

As Meg Mason explained in her interview on the Daily Stoke Podcast, for a person suffering from depression, even the thought of refilling an ice tray in the freezer might be too much.

All of which is to say yes, we must attack the day, but we must also understand that some people are being attacked by the day. It's not their fault.

It might not even be visible, it may well be incomprehensible, but they're having a hard time, it's not their fault.

And we need to be patient and empathetic with them, we need to support them, and we need to protect them.

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