If You Want to Make the World Better, Do This | Give Thanks

Welcome to the daily stoic podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com. If you wanna make the world better, do this. It's discouraging out there. It's a sad state of affairs. No one thinks this is how things should be. No one thinks this is how society should work. There's cruelty. There's stupidity. People being left behind. We're failing to address basic problems. We're failing at basic functions. Okay. So what do we do? After all, each of us is only an individual. Well, the stoics tell us that this is precisely the place to start. While others were obsessed with working their land or breeding their horses, Epictetus said that he preferred to cultivate his own improvement day to day. Rome was a dark and screwed up place then, especially in Nero's court where he lived, but Epictetus turned himself into a bright light. He was a beacon that shined then and continues to shine today. Stoicism is the art of getting active in your own rescue. And in so doing, you end up rescuing others. By reforming and improving ourselves, we are reforming and improving the world because we are a part of the world. To put a spin on one of Marcus Aurelius' great lines, what improves the bee improves the hive. Look. We don't control what anyone else is gonna do in 2026, but we can guarantee right here, right now, that it won't be all bad. We can make sure right here, right now, that things do move forward. How? By making sure that we are good in 2026. By making sure that we take a big step forward in the year ahead, we can be of service to the hive, to society, by getting serious about taking care of ourselves. Let's quit those bad habits. Let's opt out of the nastiness and the divisiveness. Let's focus on getting better. Let's get serious about stuff we've put off. Let's lend a helping hand. Let's fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make us, as Marcus Aurelius said. Not later, not only if everyone else does too, but right now, on our own, because we know we need to, because we know somebody needs to. And look, my way of getting serious about this every year, and I do this every year, is through the daily stoic new year, new you challenge. It's twenty one days of stoic inspired challenges that kick off on January 1 that are designed to make me cultivate that improvement, that are designed to make me be …