The Daily Stoic

“power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals.”

We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.

Everyone had a job—a specific duty. Even people who did bad things—they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.

He was much more interested in hearing what the other person had to say than making sure he was heard or—as most of us insist upon—winning the argument.

What bad habit did I curb today? How am I better? Were my actions just? How can I improve?

I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.

no matter what happens, no matter how disappointing our behavior has been in the past, the principles themselves remain unchanged. We can return and embrace them at any moment. What happened yesterday—what happened five minutes ago—is the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like.

Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones. . . . It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did—that is how to restart life!

Whoever we are, wherever we are—what matters is our choices. What are they? How will we evaluate them? How will we make the most of them? Those are the questions life asks us, regardless of our station. How will you answer?

focus on what is in our control as opposed to what is not.