I read the Daily Stoic every day in 2022

Just one page a day — to become a better person in one year

On January 1, 2022, I started reading the Daily Stoic. One page per day. I started with the hope that if I regularly fed just a little bit of Stoic wisdom into my life, this practice would help me become a better version of myself by the time I finish the book.

In fact, I tried to kill two birds with one stone. As I was studying Spanish, I bought the Spanish version of the book and thought that daily meditations in my target language would also help with my language learning.

I have come across other books with a similar format — 366 pages, one for each day of the year. Think The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature by Robert Greene (who, incidentally, Ryan Holiday worked with) for example. You could go for a more classic option of Thoughtful Wisdom for Every Day: 365 Days of Love, Kindness, Healing, Faith, and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Brief text for each day, on a specific topic to encourage reflection about our lives and actions.

It is a matter of taste of course, but for me, the Daily Stoic seemed the right choice. I was already familiar with the philosophy of Stoicism, which Tim Ferriss called “a no-nonsense system designed to produce dramatic real-world effects. Think of it as an ideal operating system for thriving in high-stress environments.” The Daily Stoic worked for me, but it is also probably a great way to introduce stoicism into your life. One brief concept at a time. Stoicism in my experience helps a lot when figuring out how to maneuver today’s fast-paced life filled with a barrage of information, decisions to make, and a long list of tasks to undertake.

And so the Daily Stoic it was.

The structure of the book is quite simple. For every day of the year, the Daily Stoic provides a short text by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Zeno, and other stoic philosophers, followed by a short commentary including historical examples, stoic insight, and exercises. Sometimes the message misses your mood or what you are dealing with on that particular day. But sometimes it is a direct hit and boy, it makes a difference.

Having completed the book as 2022 came to an end, I can say that it was an excellent practice. The contents were thought-provoking, yet practical and pragmatic.

Here are some of the key messages that made the most difference for me in 2022:

• See the world like a poet and an artist. Find grace, beauty, and harmony in places others take for granted. There is this story about Kurt Vonnegut where he tells his wife that he is going to go buy an envelope. His wife tells him: “well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?” Vonnegut does not respond and goes anyway, because as he explains: “I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great-looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is — we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.” This is me going to my favorite bookstore. Yes, I could order whatever I want on Amazon, and I sometimes do. But I still go to the bookstore. This is me spending time in my garden. This is me taking a stroll instead of hopping in a taxi. Over this one year, I have grown to appreciate the beauty in the mundane. It is amazing how much it helps be happier overall.
• Understanding how little is actually under our control. You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it. Your mind is the only thing that is in your control. Even your body is not completely in your control. So when confronted with a challenge or a negative experience, first ask yourself whether or not you can do anything about it. This helps avoid self-victimization, seeking who or what to blame, and other non-helpful approaches. This alone has helped me be a lot more zen than before. I now react to troubling news much better, focusing on how I can do damage control or what I can do to prevent further problems. Paradoxically, one of the most effective ways to feel in control is recognizing that you are not in control of most things in your life. How about that?
• Dealing with negative thoughts. This is related to the previous point. Now, every time I find myself in a situation where I am about to freak out, start complaining, yell, or throw things around, I just ask myself a couple of questions. First, will it make me feel better? Second, will the problem I am facing be addressed? Every time we get upset, “a little bit of life leaves the body”. Instead, it makes sense to focus on what I can do to address the issue. This brings me to the next point.
• Action is everything. Stoicism is one of the most pragmatic philosophies out there in that it puts heavy emphasis on actually getting things done. Stoics teach that after all the reading and studying, at some point we need to “put our books aside and take action”. As Seneca says, “the words must become works”. So more research, another book, and another course are not the answer. You need to do, try, do the work, learn from it, try again, learn again, and so on.
• Life is more like wrestling than dancing. Adversity will happen. That’s how life is. As Marcus Aurelius said: “An artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks”. You need to learn how to dance with the tune of life, they say, but a more apt metaphor is the one Marcus Aurelius offers — wrestling. When you deal with adversity, especially an unexpected type, it is much less of a graceful dance and much more of a gritty, tough wrestling match regardless of whether we are talking about fighting others or our demons. The more we approach life as wrestlers, the less we are shocked when facing tough circumstances. This means hard training and building the right mindset.

And here we are.

I feel calmer, stronger, and better than I was a year ago. More resilient. More calm and collected under pressure. Happier. Of course, being a stoic is an eternal work in progress, there is no stage where you can say you have arrived and there is nothing else left to work on. And because of that:

Today is 1 January 2023. Today I will start re-reading the Daily Stoic. One page per day. This time I know it will help me be a better version of myself by this time next year. I am excited to see how things turn out and what new lessons I will be able to learn and apply to my life.