Love What Your Nature Demands of You | Stake Your Claim

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. Each morning you wake up and life presents you with an opportunity. It's an opportunity to show up, to make a difference, to become the best version of yourself. But then what do you do? You hit the snooze button. You stay under the covers a while longer. You get a late start on the day, and suddenly all your plans get pushed back. You chastise and berate yourself. You start to feel like you'll never catch up, like the potential life you envision for yourself will remain elusive, out of reach. Almost two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome, the most powerful man on the planet, and he faced this exact dilemma. He found himself making excuses that it was nice and warm under the covers, as he told himself. So you were born to feel nice, he writes in meditations, instead of doing things and experiencing them? He looked outside himself to the birds, the plants, the ants, all of which were going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order as best they can. So what was his problem? Why couldn't he get out of bed in the morning and do the same? You don't love yourself enough, he said, or you'd love your nature too and what it demands of you. And you could say that each year presents the same opportunity. Right? Chance to show up, to make a difference, to become the best version of yourself to do what you need to do. The world needed Marcus Aurelius to become the person we admire and study today. It required conscious and consistent effort on his part. It required him to challenge himself, demanded that he woke up each morning and got to work on his individual tasks, putting the world in order as best he could. You are no different, and you know it. You have the ideas. You made the plans, but you haven't acted. So let's do it now. Now is the best time to start, not Monday, not when life feels easier or more convenient. If you wait for the perfect moment, it'll never come. Someone has to take control of someone, and that someone is you. The question remains, how? Well, we created the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to answer just that, to help you create a better life, better you, to help you show up and challenge yourself today. Since August, me and the Daily Stow team …