This Is An Important Time in Your Life | How Do You Do Hard Things When Life Is Already Hard?

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. People probably thought Marcus Aurelius was strange. The time he spent alone in his room, the long walks he took by himself, we know they thought it was strange that he was seen reading and writing in the coliseum, ignoring the carnage of the games below. The world today does not understand in either man or woman, Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in a gift from the sea. They do not understand the need to be alone. Perhaps we ourselves don't understand it. We don't quite see the point, or as much as we enjoy it, we don't see it as much of a priority. As I discussed over on the Daily Dad podcast and email recently, parents will manage to make time for so many things, but quiet time for for and by themselves is written off as an impossible indulgence. But actually, Lindbergh writes, these are among the most important times in one's life when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows that he must be alone to create, the writer to work out his thoughts, the musician to compose, the saint to pray. There would be no meditations without this quiet solitude, or more alarming, there would have been no Marcus Aurelius either. He had to take the time to retreat into his own soul, as he said, to rejoice in perfect stillness. He needed to step away. He needed to evaluate and reflect, prepare, and anticipate. He was an extremely busy man with endless amounts of demands on his person and his schedule, but he insisted on stillness because he knew it was the key to his health and happiness, and his leadership depended on it. And the same is true for you. Support for this show comes from Fundrise. Look. Investing in companies already in the S and P 500 can sometimes feel like you're being served someone else's leftovers. Could still be a good meal, but it's hard not to imagine what that food tasted like when it was fresh. You know, historically, it's only VC investors and, you know, insiders and hedge fund managers and stuff who had access to the best companies in the world before the public did. One of the things you find out when you get money is that, you know, there's certain things that are available to you that weren't available to you before and aren't available to most people. Well, Fundrise is completely upending that dynamic …