Don’t Put Things Off

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.

1:09and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids.

1:46And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And And daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

2:24Do you know what one of the last things Abraham Lincoln ever said was? As he sat in a box at Ford's Theater as he waited for the play to start, Lincoln turned to his wife and said, Oh, how I should like to visit Jerusalem sometime. Within minutes, an assassin would fire a bullet into his brain. Within hours, he would be dead. Now, of course, there were many reasons why this great man never found time in life to visit Jerusalem. He had to teach himself to read. He had to work himself out of abject poverty. He had to conquer depression. and then the gravest threat to freedom yet known in the United States.

3:01He freed the slaves and made sure democracy would not perish from the earth. And these are all reasons why he had to put off that trip till a later date, just as you have many reasons why you are waiting to do this or delaying doing that. And yet life has a way of stripping all our reasons bare, of humbling our plans and assumptions. We must live, as Marcus Aurelius said, as if death hangs over us, because it does. We cannot put off till tomorrow, he said, what we can do today, whether that's being good or highest priority or telling people we love them or going places we wish to go. No one knows what the future holds.

3:40No one knows how much time we have left. So do not delay. Do not wish. Do not wait. Do it now while you still have time, while there still is a chance. All of the future is uncertainty, Seneca said, so live now, live immediately. Or as Marcus says in the challenge coin I carry with me everywhere, you could leave life right now, but that determine what you do and say and think. This exercise of memento mori from the Stoics, it's not about being morbid. It's about creating a sense of urgency and clarity and priority. That's why the Stoics practice memento mori. That's why I carry this challenge coin with me.

4:18I have a memento mori, a piece of a tombstone that I keep in my bathroom mirror that I look at on a daily basis. Memento mori, it's so powerful. It gives so much clarity. Find some way to practice that. If you want ours, you can check it out at store.dailystoic.com. But just find something that reminds you that you should not delay. You cannot wait. Do it now.

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