Your Effort Today Can Change Tomorrow

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1:43Welcome 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, dailysteak.com.

2:10It's very easy to be jaded. It's very easy to be cynical. The system is, as it was in Rome, hopelessly broken. Corruption, dishonesty, and stupidity are all widespread. The odds are impossible. The problem's enormous. So why care? Why even try? The answer, the Stoics would say, is because you matter, because an individual can make a difference. Imagine if Epictetus had told himself that all was hopeless and that Rome was impossible to change or correct. Not only would his life have been different, but so too would Marcus Aurelius and millions of other Romans. General James Mattis reminds us that cynicism is a form of cowardice.

2:48It's also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we tell ourselves that it's pointless, that we can't make a difference, that we don't matter, we're right. But it's worse than that, because someone will step in to fill that void. And it's likely that this person who you will be deferring to is allied with the people and the forces that made you cynical in the first place. A writer recently wrote a piece in the New York Times about his decision to vote in a primary in his state in the Deep South, even though his political preferences were not even close to being represented. As it happens, in choosing between the lesser of two evils, the man cast the deciding vote in the election.

3:21It was literally decided by one vote. And that is why we can't give up, why we have to believe in our own agency, because one person can and often does make a difference.

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