There’s an old joke: When the Gods wish to punish us, they give us everything we’ve ever wanted. Look at most people who win the lottery. Look at most famous people. Look at most world leaders. To borrow an expression from one particularly unhappy world leader, what do they look like? They look like they’re tired of winning. Because winning isn’t actually as fun as it seemed like it would be...and most of what we want to win turns out to not really be worth it.

This was Marcus Aurelius’ point.

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And in today's Daily Stoic excerpt reading, Ryan discusses the importance of having a great and noble person in our minds at all times to help guide our actions by examining this quote from Seneca's Moral Letters: "We can remove most sins if we have a witness standing by as we are about to go wrong. The soul should have someone it can respect by whose example it can make its inner sanctum more inviolable. Happy is the person who can improve others, not only when present, but even when in their thoughts."

📔 You can check out How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life at the Painted Porch.

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