One thing addicts trying to get sober quickly discover is just how resilient their addiction is. They quit booze and suddenly find themselves smoking a lot more pot. They quit pot, but now issues are popping up with eating or with sex. Or they get rid of all those bad habits, and realize for the first time that they have a temper or a procrastination issue or terrible anxiety. 

The point is: For every action there is a reaction. The energy of one bad habit, once removed, emerges in the form of another. Those of us who are not addicts can certainly relate to this, too. The road to progress is rarely as straight as we’d like it to be. For every two steps forward, we take one back, or end up on some detour we never anticipated. 

But that’s what this philosophy is about. Remember, Seneca said that each day we should ask ourselves what bad habit we’ve curbed, what thing we’ve stopped. Maybe 24 hours is not the right form of measurement for you, maybe it’s a monthly thing. Or a yearly thing. If you live to be old, hey, maybe you’ll have finally gotten rid of most of your bad habits, and bad impulses. 

Don’t despair. Just keep chugging away. We assemble our lives action by action, Marcus Aurelius said. No one can stop us from that. Cross one thing off after another. Take one step after the next. 

You’re making progress. You’re getting better.

P.S. This was originally sent on October 19, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.