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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day 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 must find your rules and stick with them. It'd be wonderful if life never tempted you if you could just go day to day, winging it and always doing right.

But that's not how the world is. That's not who you are. If left to our own devices with enough opportunities eventually will mess up, will drift, will stray. That's why the best leaders have what General James Mattis has called flat ass rules.

Know what you stand for and stick to it. He said, draw the line and hold it. Harry Truman famously explained some of his.

He wrote in all this long career, I had certain rules I followed when loser draw I refused to handle any political money in any way whatever I engaged in no private interest whatever that could be helped by local state or national governments.

I refused presence hotel accommodations or trips which were paid for by private parties. I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate.

I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers and the people of my country state and nation.

One of the earliest and most ferocious debates amongst the early stoics was about the necessity of precepts. This doesn't seem controversial to us now, but to stoics like Aristo, the idea of needing these rules for living was a cop out.

A wise person, a trained philosopher should just do right instinctively and automatically he said others like Xeno and later, Seneca believed that life was more complicated or importantly it was exhausting.

So to create shortcuts and guidelines was to help ensure that we stay on the right path that we don't let the complexity and the nuance of each individual scenario allows to compromise on the big high standards we know we hold.

So stay your rules and stick to them. That itself is a great rule whether it pertains to diet or ethical behavior.

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So thanks again for listening to The Daily Stoke podcast.

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