You Don't Have Unlimited Time | What's Up To Us, What's Not Up To Us

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. You don't have unlimited time. It happens every year. It's kinda funny. Even though we've been talking about it for weeks, even though it's a time when people are making resolutions to stop procrastinating, even though the deadline was clear, it's the last two days of the year where we see the most sign ups for the daily stoic new year new you challenge. Like, far and away, the most registrations. As I said, it's funny, but it's also a little revealing because this is what we do, isn't it? Like, we think about doing something. We set a goal or an intention. We know there's something that would do us good, and then we put off actually doing it until the last minute. Now why is that? Is it to give ourselves an excuse to not have to follow through because we don't wanna hear that we can't? Because maybe we wanna hear that we can't, that the window has passed. Maybe since we're afraid, we don't make the commitment. Or maybe it's just that timeless thing that all fools have in common as Seneca said, that they are always getting ready to start. We say I'm gonna get to it, just not quite yet. I'm gonna do it. I just need to take care of some other things first. You know you'd like to eat better. You know you'd like to get in better shape. You know you'd like to get more organized. You know you'd like to be able to complete that creative project or learn an instrument or reconnect with an old friend. You you know you're capable of more. But when will we do this? Eventually. And then what happens is that time sneaks up on us. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius rebukes this tendency not only as lazy, but as arrogant and entitled. He says we act as if we had endless years ahead of us. But no, he says, death overshadows you. While you're alive and able, be good. While you're alive and able, stop putting things off. Stop telling yourself, at some point, stop being arrogant and entitled. Stop acting as if you have endless years ahead of you. You don't. You are mortal. You don't have unlimited time. How many New Years have you watched pass with the same list of things you get around to? How many times have you told yourself this is the year only to find yourself twelve months later in the exact same …