Do It While You Still Can

0:05Welcome 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, to 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.

1:09the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven it across the country.

1:49And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity, but it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash Detours.

2:30Do it while you still can. Winter has a way of lulling us into bad habits and old vices. Like bears and hibernation, we're burrowed deep in our comfortable routines. We found our favorite spot on the couch, our go-to delivery meals, our perfectly temperature-controlled environments. We've mastered the art of avoiding the cold, the wind, the discomfort. They call this the velvet rut, and it's soft and pleasant, but it's still a rut. And yeah, after months of dark mornings and early sunsets, after trudging through slush and scraping ice off windshields, it's reasonable to seek shelter in these comfortable patterns.

3:15But the Stoics remind us that true growth requires resistance, Just as seedlings must break through the soil, we must break through and out these patterns. Nature doesn't stay dormant forever. Neither should we. The idea is that we move with the seasons and we must face the brisk winds of change head on. And that's what the spring forward challenge that we do each spring with Daily Stoic is about. Not quick fixes, but it is about getting set for spring. And with 10 days of Stoic-inspired challenges, one per morning, the idea is that you'll clear away some of winter's accumulated habits just as you would clear dead leaves from the garden.

4:01You can plant new patterns that will grow and flourish throughout the year. Yeah, the world is crazy right now, but as Marcus Aurelius reminds us, these external circumstances don't define us. It's our response to them that does. and we have the power to transform challenges into opportunities for growth. Stop wandering about, Marcus says to himself in meditations, perhaps on the eve of a seasonal change like this one. He says, get busy with life's purpose. Toss aside your empty hopes. Get active in your own rescue. If you care for yourself at all, he says, do it while you can. This is the time.

4:43Do it now. Now, we'd love to have you join us and thousands of Stoics all over the world in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. The idea is it's going to help you with anxiety and stress, how to be present, how to get after it, how to get active in your own rescue, as Mark's really said. So we'd love to have you join us and we'd love to have you stop procrastinating. Break out, break free, get cleaning, challenge yourself. And you can sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash spring. We start in less than 24 hours. Hey, just to thank you for being an awesome listener of the Daily Stoic podcast, which I very much appreciate.

5:19We are offering a discount to anyone who wants to sign up for the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. We're going to kick spring of 2025 off with 10 days of stoic-inspired challenges. And if you go to dailystoic.com slash spring right now and enter code DSPOD20, you'll get 20 % off the Spring Forward Challenge. It's going to be awesome. It starts on March 20th, so don't wait. I'll see you in there. DailyStoic.com slash spring with code DSPOD20 for the 2025 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. Let's start off spring with a bang. I'll see you in there.

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