These Days You Need Double What It Takes | Reignite Your Thoughts

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. These days, you need double what it takes. You think Marcus Aurelius wasn't prepared? Of course, he was. Almost no one received more on the job training than he did. Roughly two decades under Antoninus, he had fantastic teachers. He was trained in stoicism, a philosophy which not only prepared for the worst, but never expected the best. And still, still life rocked him. His reign was marked by an unending series of troubles. Misfortune after misfortune befell him, plagues, war, the death of his children, an unfaithful wife. Surely, this exhausted his reserves. Surely, this taxed him beyond capacity. And yet yet still he had to keep going as we all do. Sometimes life feels like it's out to get us. It throws every type of adversity at us. Illness, financial troubles, relationship issues, inequality, and injustice, but still, we must keep going. We can train. We can prepare. We can stock up. We can rehearse in our minds what we need to do. This will not be enough. Because more will be expected of us still, more will be piled onto our plates. Enough is not enough. We'll need double, maybe more, especially these days. We'll need to reach deep down inside us to find some more. We'll need to keep going, even on empty, because it's gonna take what it's going to take, and all we can do is take it or not. So on Monday, I had a talk. I was flying to Florida for a talk, but I took the kids to school, I worked at the office, and then I picked them up from school. We went to Whole Foods, did our weekly grocery shopping as, the boys and I do every week, and then I drove, we met at a parking lot near the airport. I handed my wife the kids and all the groceries, and then I flew to Florida, flew home, and then, when I got back the next night, I made myself a sandwich from the groceries that I had just bought. And actually, the week before, I I took them to Whole Foods for a weekly thing, and I had a phone call I had to do. They played upstairs on the, on the playground. The the Whole Foods headquarters here in Austin has a second story playground. They played on that while I did my phone call, and then together, we went and did all our grocery shopping. I love Whole Foods. I don't …