It’d be wonderful if life never tempted you, if you could just go day-to-day, winging it and always do right. But that’s not how the world is. That’s not who you are. If left to our own devices, with enough opportunities, eventually we’ll mess up—we’ll drift, we’ll stray.

That’s why the best leaders have what General Mattis has called “flat-ass rules.” Know what you stand for and stick to it, he said. Draw the line and hold it. Harry Truman famously explained some of his:

In all this long career I had certain rules I followed win, lose or draw. I refused to handle any political money in any way whatever. I engaged in no private interests whatever that could be helped by local, state or national governments. I refused presents, hotel accommodations or trips which were paid for by private parties…I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate… I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers, and the people of my country, state, and nation.

One of the earliest and most ferocious debates amongst the early Stoics was about the necessity of “precepts.” This doesn’t seem controversial to us now, but to Stoics like Aristo, the idea of needing these rules for living was a cop out. A wise person, a trained philosopher, should just do right instinctively and automatically he said. Others, like Zeno and later Seneca, believed that life was more complicated—more importantly, it was exhausting. So to create shortcuts and guidelines was to help ensure that we stay on the right path, that we don’t let the complexity and the nuance of each individual scenario allow us to compromise on the big, high standards we know we hold. 

State your rules and stick to them. That itself is a great rule—whether it pertains to diet or ethical behavior.

P.S. This was originally sent on February 26, 2021. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.