Today is quiet and calm. It’s lovely and peaceful. But when we think about the year ahead, many of us are nervous. We are clinching, as if for a fight, tensing as if we know that a rollercoaster is about to start. There is of course the political dysfunction and division that could spiral out of control at any moment. There is the looming, incredible potentially disruptive power of AI sitting before us…as well as the vertigo of a market just a few companies have driven higher and higher. There are warning signs. There are unknowns. We could keep walking through raindrops…or the music could stop. We don’t know what is going to happen in 2026, but we can be pretty sure that something is. Will 2026 be like Seneca’s year 26, a turbulent year of exile, illness, financial setbacks, and all sorts of other brutal reminders of, as he wrote, “fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases”? Will it be like Marcus Aurelius’s year 126, filled with chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty? Again, we don’t know. So what should we be thinking about? What should we do? The Stoics say that we should think about our “chief task” in life: to identify and separate matters into what’s under our control and what isn’t. Making this distinction—then choosing to focus on what’s in your control—will make you happier, stronger, and more successful. If only because it concentrates your resources in the places where they matter. While many people this time of year think about making resolutions about things that are only partially in their control—getting promoted, reducing stress, making more money, finding a partner—I’m focusing on these 13 things that are fully up to me… Watching my information diet. When I’m not feeling great physically—tired, irritable, sluggish—usually it’s because I’m eating poorly. In the same way, when I feel mentally scattered and distracted—I know it’s time to focus on cleaning up my information diet. “Read not the Times,” Thoreau wrote. “Read the Eternities.” Read old books. Read philosophy. Read history. Read biographies. Study psychology. Study the patterns of history. Read The Great Influenza to be informed about pandemics. Read All The King’s Men and It Can’t Happen Here to be informed about the demagogues of this moment. Read The Moviegoer to understand your listless teenager. Read The Years of Lyndon Johnson to study power and ambition. Read the Stoics. Read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book on the market crash of 1929. Read Morgan Housel’s great book of anecdotes and musings on the constants of human nature and history. Read Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger's wonderful book about not only enduring unimaginable suffering but finding meaning in it. And definitely, definitely, definitely, read Zweig’s biography of Montaigne (which I talk about here). Challenging myself. “We treat the body rigorously,” Seneca said, “so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.” We toughen ourselves up because life is tough. That’s what Stoicism is—physical and mental challenges we subject ourselves to so that, no matter what life has in store for us, we’ll be able to say as Epictetus said we need to be able to say: “This is what I trained for.” This is why I'm a big believer in having a physical practice. It's why I take cold showers even though I hate them. And it’s why every year since 2018, I’ve started the year with The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It’s 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges, weekly live calls with me, a private challenge community, and the chance to do hard things alongside people—CEOs, writers, artists, parents, professors, students, founders, athletes—from around the world. (Only a week left to sign up to join us in the 2026 Challenge—get all the details here). In any case, we must challenge ourselves, we must treat ourselves rigorously, so that whatever happens in 2026 and beyond, we can say, “this is what I trained for.” Making a positive contribution every day. For a long time, my writing habit was all-or-nothing—either I wrote a lot of words or I didn’t. Over time, I’ve lowered the stakes: now the question is simply, “Did I make a positive contribution to my writing today?” Sometimes that means writing, sometimes editing, adding, deleting. Sometimes I’m home and it’s in my office, sometimes I’m on the road and it’s on a plane or in a hotel room. Sometimes it’s a big contribution, sometimes it’s a little contribution. In Discipline Is Destiny, I write about the practice of Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Always finding some way to make a little progress. Focusing on the joys of getting a little bit better every day. Doing what only I can do. Something that’s happened with Daily Stoic over the years is as it has grown, so has the number of copycats. And so we’re constantly asking, what can only we do? What can only we write? What can only we create? With the bookstore, for example, we’re lucky to have authors constantly passing through to record the podcast. While they’re here, they sign books. Sometimes we do live events with them. Those books, those experiences—you can’t get them anywhere else. This has always been good advice, but with these AI tools making it easier and easier to copy and replicate and reproduce, it’s more important than ever to find and focus on the things only you can do. There’s a lot a lot of people can do, but there’s some stuff—particularly where you live, with your family, with your skills etc–that only you can do. Do that. Competing only with myself. Epictetus quipped that, “You can always win if you only enter competitions where winning is up to you.” The bestseller list? That’s up to the New York Times. Winning a Grammy? That’s up for the Recording Academy. A Nobel Prize? That’s up to the folks in Stockholm. Even competitive goals like being the fastest person in a race or the richest person in the world—these depend on what your competitors do. What is in my control is showing up, giving maximum effort, following my process, sticking to my principles, pursuing what lights me up. Could I write about something with more mass than an obscure school of ancient philosophy and sell more books? Could I get into crypto and make more money? Could I do what other podcasters do—platform anyone, no matter how ridiculous or toxic, just because controversy drives downloads—and get more attention? Maybe. But philosophy is what I find endlessly fascinating, crypto is something I know nothing about, and getting attention is not my goal. So I’m tuning those things out and focusing on what I can do, what I know, what gets me excited, and what I value. If that translates to on the field success, great—in fact, it almost always does. If that translates into career recognition, awesome—and again, it usually does. Discarding anxiety. Some people are anxious about politics. Others about flying. Others about their kids. The one thing all causes of anxiety have in common? US! The airport is not making you anxious. You are making yourself anxious in the airport! Marcus Aurelius talks about this in Meditations. “Today I escaped from anxiety,” he says. “Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.” It’s a little frustrating, but it’s also freeing. Because it means you can stop it! You can choose to discard it. Raising my kids well. One of my favorite things to do each day is sit down and write the Daily Dad email. It’s one piece of wisdom—drawn from history, science, literature, and other ordinary parents—that goes out to about 100,000 parents around the world (sign up here). But really, I’m writing it for myself. I’m reading, researching, and collecting the best ideas because I want to be a better parent. I want to be more patient. I want to set a good example. I want to give my kids the wisdom and resilience they’ll need to navigate the world. Raising kids is the most important thing I’ll ever do. So I study it the way I study philosophy, history, or business—because I want to do it well. If you want to have a multi-generational impact, if you want to make the future better—raise your kids right. Using my platform to support what I think is important. I have a platform, and I want to use it well. That means amplifying ideas, voices, and causes that matter—not just whatever gets the most clicks or makes the most money. Every year over at Daily Stoic skip the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales—huge revenue opportunities—and run a fundraiser for Feeding America instead. This year we surpassed our $300,000 goal, providing well over 3 million meals for families across the country! Epictetus talked about how every situation has two handles. I could pick up 2025 by the handle of everything that went wrong, everything I didn't like, everything that disappointed me. Or I can pick it up by the handle of what we accomplished, the money we raised, the people we helped, the good we did. I’m choosing to focus on the second handle. Thinking long term. One of the things you get when you “read the eternities” as Thoreau said, is a longer term perspective. Do you know how long the Antonine Plague lasted? 15 years. Ok, what about the “Decline and Fall of Rome” which some people think America is in the middle of right now? Some 300 years! We need to zoom out. We need, like that famous Zen story, to “wait and see.” And we need, as Jeff Bezos likes to say, to “focus on the things that don’t change.” A lot of people will spend 2026 fixated on trends, fads, and momentary crises. I’m focusing on what will still matter in five, ten, fifty years. Character. Discipline. Patience. Wisdom. Hard work. These are constants—no matter who’s in office, no matter what’s happening in the headlines. The world will always be chaotic. There will always be noise. The only way to stay grounded is to focus on what actually matters in the long run. Treating people well. I don’t control the cruelty in the world. I don’t control how others act, how unfair or thoughtless or selfish they can be. But I do control how I run my team. How I show up for my family. How I treat strangers. The world will always have its share of rudeness, dishonesty, and indifference. That doesn’t mean I have to contribute to it. Kindness, patience, fairness—these are always within my control. Having fewer opinions. It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. Do you need to have an opinion about the scandal of the moment—is it changing anything? Do you need to have an opinion about the way your kid does their hair? So what if that person is a vegetarian? “These things are not asking to be judged by you,” Marcus writes. “Leave them alone.” Especially because these opinions often make us miserable! “It’s not things that upset us,” Epictetus says, “it’s our opinions about things.” The fewer opinions you have, especially about other people and things outside your control, the happier you will be. Of course, this is not to say that we shouldn’t have any opinions at all, but that we should save our judgments for what matters—right and wrong, justice and injustice, what is moral and what is not. If we spend our energy forming opinions about every trivial annoyance, we’ll have none left for the things that actually matter. Contributing to my community. America’s communities have been hollowed out. Big box stores replaced small businesses. Digital replaced physical. So much of modern success is subtractive—extracting, optimizing, squeezing more for less. I’m trying to do the opposite. In 2021, my wife and I bought Tracy’s Drive-In Grocery, a little place that’s been in business in our small, rural town since 1940. We also opened The Painted Porch, a small-town bookstore down the street. Neither of these are the most rational business decisions—it’s risky, expensive, and deeply local. But what’s the point of success if you only spend it trying to be more successful? We like these things because they matter. Because they are real. Not letting the sonsofbitches turn me into a sonuvabitch. This might be the hardest task in the world right now—to not let assholes turn you into an asshole. To not let cruelty harden you, to not let stupidity make you bitter, to not let outrage pull you down to its level. “The best revenge,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, “is to not be like that.” I am disappointed by some of the things people I know are saying and doing; I am more focused on making sure I don’t follow suit. |
