We are what our choices make us. Do we walk the fifteen minutes to work, or do we take an Uber? Hit the snooze button, or get up early? Do we have the difficult conversation, or hide from it? Is good enough really good enough?
Will you resolve to be better this year? Or just stay the same?
It’s your choice. And what you choose is who you are.
The Stoics believed that a beautiful life was the result of beautiful decisions. They also believed that the only way to freedom, to strength, to wisdom, was through continual effort.
“Progress is not achieved by luck or accident,” Epictetus said, “but by working on yourself daily.”
The question for you today, then—and really, for this upcoming year as well—comes down to one word: When?
To quote Epictetus again: How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of and for yourself?
Because life is short. The time is now. And gains are cumulative.
The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results, the further you’ll end up going.
For the last two years, we have been doing what we call “challenges” and, on January 1st, we’re starting again with a new challenge for the new year—and for a new you. We’re calling it the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge, and it’s designed to help you do exactly what Epictetus was talking about, and what we have spent so much time talking about in these emails: Take action on becoming the person you know you’re capable of being.
It would be easy to let December bleed into January, to let 2020 meander and stultify just as you did with 2019. But that’s not what Stoicism is about. That’s not what you want to be about. Instead, we must seize the moment. We must seek out challenges.
That’s why we created this 21-day Stoic challenge: to do just that—to help you create a better life, and reshape a new you here at the start of a new decade that is set to reshape the world.
The Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge is a set of 21 actionable challenges, presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. 21 challenges designed to set up potentially life-changing habits for 2020 and beyond, that will help you become the kind of person you know you are capable of being—the kind that can handle any of the uncertainty and difficulty and opportunity that the next year and the next decade are sure to throw at us.
Some people are going to hire a personal trainer in January. Others will hire a nutritionist or a life coach. You have the chance to get step-by-step instruction and encouragement from three of the greatest thinkers in history: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus.
We’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, and why it works. We’ll give you strategies for maintaining this way of living not just for this coming year, but for your whole life.
What is getting rid of one bad habit worth? What would you give to add a new positive way of being into your daily routine? What would you give to be a positive person? And how great would it be to become a part of a community—part of a tribe—of people just like you, struggling and growing and making that satisfying progress towards the kind of personal reinvention that produces the kind of human beings they never knew they could one day be?
Well, here’s your chance.
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The Daily Stoic