Today Is A Miracle

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$1.49 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$2.99 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

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1:19Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

1:46Today is a miracle. It's kind of a funny tradition when you think about it, isn't it? How we stay up late each year and count down the final seconds of the year together. Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year. We cheer. We celebrate. It's a big show to mark the end of the year. But how many of us in a rush for a kiss or as the glasses clink together really feel what's just happened? Those seconds we were counting down were seconds we'll never get back. Our time here tick, tick, ticking away. A year of our lives is gone forever. Tempus fugit. Memento mori. The Stoics did not take note of how fast time flies in the shortness of life to be morbid.

2:35No, they sought invigoration. They sought perspective. They sought clarity. Seneca said that if you went to bed thinking that you would live your whole life, the morning would feel like a bonus. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the 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.

3:13It 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 across the country. And 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.

3:58And 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. We can apply the same thinking annually. 2024 is dead and gone. Who we were in 2024 is dead and gone. Here we are lucky enough to rise again in 2025, a year that perhaps many of us did not ever expect to see. We have beaten death. We have been given a fresh chance at life.

4:45Who will we be? How will we spend it? This is an incredible gift you have been given, a wonderful opportunity. Forget business as usual. Live. Have something to show for the next 365 days. Have something to show for today, for this very moment. And if you want to do something awesome and exciting, you want to step into 2025 with a vengeance, why don't you join us in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. I already kicked off the year with a cold plunge into the Gulf of Mexico with my family. Thousands of people from all over the world have already taken a big step towards self-improvement and making sure this will be a year they experience life to the fullest.

5:30What we're doing, we're doing 21 days of stoic-inspired challenges designed to help us make big changes, be present, develop resistance, and start great habits. And look, this happens every single year. Poor Ashley and our customer service. Tons and tons of people email on January 1st and ask if they could still join. did they miss out can they still do the challenge and the answer is of course we would be crazy not to let them in because this year is important it's going to be challenging and we want to be able to rise and meet that challenge and uh here we are still in the glow of the celebration the possibilities of a new year and so this year we're going to keep it open till the third the first session we're all doing together is going to be on the fourth so we're keeping it open till january 3rd, which means you can still sign up, do all the challenges, participate in all the live Q &As and everything else we're doing together.

6:25It's not too late. I want to see you in the Daily Stoic New Year New Challenge. Sign up at dailystoic.com slash challenge. I'll put a link in today's show notes. And if you're thinking about really making a commitment, you want to do Daily Stoic Life, there's a page that'll pop up as you're signing up for the challenge that will let you You get this challenge and all our challenges for free. You can also just go to dailystoiclife.com. Let's make this an awesome year. Let's be what we're capable of being. You had plans to do a thing to start the year off with a bang. Now let's actually do it. And let's do it right now, this year, this moment, today.

7:02dailystoic.com challenge. I will see you in there.

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