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Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes illustrative stories from history,

current events and literature to help you be better at what you do.

And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoke intention for the week,

something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing.

So let's get into it.

You will fight this battle all alone.

It would be wonderful if we were all aligned on this. It would be wonderful if the world was your ally that it was green lights all the way for your diet, for your sobriety, for your path to virtue.

But it isn't. In fact, it's the opposite. There are temptations. There are those people that Marcus really has talked about, the arrogant, the dishonest, the jealous, the mean, who you will face from the moment you arise in the morning till you go to bed at night.

We're still what we know to be good in the long term is often punished in the short term and what is bad in the long term is often rewarded in the short term.

But isn't that what makes getting it right so beautiful.

Kato's stand during the fall of the Republic wouldn't be so powerful if everyone had been on his side.

Marcus Aurelius wouldn't be so impressive if every king had been a philosopher and if every philosopher was a king.

No, it's that this is hard, that it's rare, that the world is not set up to encourage what we're trying to do that makes it special.

We are fighting this battle all alone against resistance, against the current, against the movement of the mob and the status quo. No matter we will keep fighting, we will grow stronger for pushing against it.

We will stand out because of it.

What expensive things cost? From the cynics, the Stoics learned the powerful practice of focusing on the true worth of things.

That the cost of an item isn't simply what it's sold for, but what it costs the owner to own.

So much of our desire for material goods comes at the great price of both anxiety and the loss of our serenity.

And even when gained, these things often leave us more anxious and less serene. So today spend some time reflecting on what the things you buy actually cost you and see if they are really worth what you have been paying.

And that's from today's entry in the Daily Stoic journal. We have some quotes from Seneca and epictetus here.

So concerning the things we pursue and for what we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration. Either there is nothing useful in them or most aren't useful.

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