Don’t Put Things Off

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Welcome 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, 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.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Do 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. He 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,

• 1:41Ryan Holiday?

  just as you have many reasons why you're 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 really 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, our highest priority, or telling people we love them, or going places we wish to go." No one knows what the future holds. No 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.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  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, let 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. I 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.

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  But just find something that reminds you that you should not delay. You cannot wait. Do it now.