The pages were a safe space. A place away from the intrigues of court. A place away from war and death and pestilence. A place to process his stress, his anxieties, his fears.

We can see in ​Meditations​ what these meditations were doing for Marcus Aurelius—they were doing what journaling can do for all of us. Give us space to think, space to calm down, space to get perspective, space to be grateful, space to remind ourselves of what’s important.

It’s also interesting though, to see that Marcus Aurelius was tough on himself in his journal too. That he didn’t just use the space to snipe at others or judge them. He wasn’t just listing his accomplishments or recording the minutiae of his life. No, he was asking himself hard, probing questions.

“What am I doing with my soul?” he asks in Book 5. And then he says that he—that you—need to “interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so-called mind and what kind of soul you have now? A child’s soul, an adolescent’s, a woman’s? A tyrant’s soul? The soul of a predator—or its prey?”

Marcus Aurelius was an all-powerful emperor. No one else was interrogating him, no one else was subjecting him to these hard questions. He knew that if he didn’t do it, no one would. Well, today no one else is concerned with your soul (it’s no one else’s business). So if you don’t interrogate yourself about it, if you’re not examining your own mind, who will? If you’re not using the pages of your journal to get to self-awareness, to get to clarity, how will you ever get there?

You have to do this. You have to do it every day.

That’s why we created the ​Daily Stoic Journal​—to provide structure around this essential exercise of preparing for the day ahead and putting the day up for review. The book includes a special introduction about the art of journaling, as well as 52 new weekly Stoic meditations. ​Pick up yours today​ for the year ahead, or, if you already have one and want to help it endure the beatings that traveling with a journal invariably delivers, check out our official ​Daily Stoic Journal leather cover​.