It's pretty straight forward: Define your rules. Live by them.

“When the standards have been set,” Epictetus said, “the work of philosophy is just this, to examine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them.”

But of course, the Stoics were not quite so direct in practice. One Stoic, Chrysippus—supposedly wrote 500 lines a day…the vast majority of which are lost. The Stoics spoke, wrote, debated, but nowhere did they put their “commandments” down in one place. Not at least in any form that survived.

Here are 25 rules from the Stoics, gathered from their immense body of work across two thousand years. These rules functioned, then, as now, as guides to what the ancients called “the good life.” Hopefully some of them will illuminate your own path.

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00:00 Intro
00:52 1. Grab the smooth handle
01:23 2. Every person is an opportunity for kindness
01:45 3. Focus on what you can control
02:09 4. You control how you respond to things
02:41 5. Ask yourself, “Is this essential?” 
03:12 6. Meditate on your mortality every day
03:30 7. Say no (a lot)
04:05 8. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
04:48 9. Find one thing that makes you wiser every day
05:26 10. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee (Marcus Aurelius)
05:57 11. Don’t judge other people
06:27 12. Study the lives of the greats
07:02 13. Forgive, forgive, forgive.
07:32 14. Value time more than money/possessions
07:57 15. You are the product of your habits
08:12 16. Remember you have the power to have no opinion
08:43 17. Own the morning
09:12 18. Put yourself up for review (interrogate yourself)
09:31 19. Don’t suffer imagined troubles
10:03 20. Try to see the good in people
10:26 21. Never be overheard complaining… even to yourself
10:46 22. Two ears, one mouth… for a reason (Zeno)
10:58 23. There is always something you can do
11:19 24. Don’t compare yourself to others
11:51 25. Learn something from everyone

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