What do Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, John Quincy Adams, Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Joan Didion all have in common?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s simple.\u00a0They journaled<\/a>. Often, if not every day.<\/p>\n Some did it in the morning. Some did it at night. Some captured moments of triumph, and others moments of pain and anguish (Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s\u00a0entry on the day he lost his wife and mother<\/a>: \u201cX. The light has gone out of my life.\u201d) Whatever the method, whatever the language, they were journaling their innermost thoughts and working through their feelings.<\/p>\n The Stoics, as we\u00a0have talked about here<\/a>, many times, were avid journalers. It\u2019s pretty incredible that Marcus Aurelius\u2019s journal survives to us, and what\u2019s even more incredible is the brilliance of what\u2019s in it. As the American philosopher Brand Blanshard marveled about\u00a0Meditations<\/em><\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cFew care now about the marches and countermarches of the Roman commanders. What the centuries have clung to is a notebook of thoughts by a man whose real life was largely unknown who put down in the\u00a0midnight<\/span><\/span>\u00a0dimness not the events of the day or the plans of the morrow, but something of far more permanent interest, the ideals and aspirations that a rare spirit lived by.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The question is: Are you following his example? It\u2019s wonderful to read about Stoicism and to study it. But Marcus and Seneca and Epictetus would also demand that you put out your own insights, that you physically wrestle with the ideas and principles of the philosophy with your pen. Not just every once in a while, but every day. To paraphrase and add to something Seneca once said: The thoughts should become words so that they might become works.<\/p>\n The Daily Stoic Journal<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is out today<\/strong>\u00a0(in the US<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0in the UK<\/a>). We hope you give it a try and hope you appreciate the design and the many features we\u2019ve built into it (and the 52 new meditations included in it). But at the risk of spoiling the basic premise, we\u2019ll give you the Stoic recipe for journaling right here right now:<\/p>\n 1. Prepare For The Day Ahead:\u00a0<\/strong>Each morning you should prepare, plan and meditate on how you aim to act that day. You should be envisioning everything that may come and steeling yourself so you\u2019re ready to conquer it. As Seneca wrote, \u201cThe wise will start each day with the thought, \u2018Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own.\u2019” Or think of Marcus\u2019s reminder: \u201cWhen you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can\u2019t tell good from evil.\u201d<\/p>\n 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Put The Day Up For Review:\u00a0<\/strong>Stoicism isn\u2019t just about thinking, it\u2019s about\u00a0action<\/em>\u2014and the best way to improve is to review. Each evening you should, like Seneca did, examine your day and your actions. As he put it, \u201cWhen the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent, aware of this habit that\u2019s now mine, I examine my entire day and go back over what I\u2019ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.\u201d The question should be: Did I follow my plans for the day? Was I prepared enough? What could I do better? What have I learned that will help me tomorrow?<\/p>\n P.S. Sign up today for\u00a0the Daily Stoic\u2019s email<\/a>\u00a0and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.<\/em><\/p>\n Explore Our Daily Stoic Store<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n