Qasim Sultan <qsdogar@gmail.

com>

This Is a Game of Inches

Daily Stoic <info@dailystoic.com> Fri, Apr 24, 5:56 PM

To: <qsdogar@gmail.com>
Zeno lost everything in a shipwreck in the 3rd century BC. A family
fortune. His occupation. Everything. He washed up in Athens anonymous
and penniless. When he died, an old man, some forty years later, he was
not only prosperous, he was one of the wisest men in the world. He’d
been offered the keys to Athens and an honorary citizenship too. The
school he founded, on the old stoa in Agora, would influence millions of
people for the next two thousand years.
How did he do it? How did he recover? How did he make his way to
greatness?
The same way that the NFL linebacker Ryan Shazier (and aspiring Stoic)
would work his way back from that freak on-field tackle that left him
paralyzed: One small bit of progress after the next. “Well-being,” Zeno
once said, “is realized by small steps but it is no small thing.” Shazier once
pointed out that football is a “game of inches” and so too was his
recovery, from a hospital bed to a wheelchair, then gaining back the ability
to move his muscles, then standing unassisted, then taking one step, then
taking more, then being able to jog, then being able to do a three-foot box
jump. The ceiling on his comeback? There isn’t one. He’s going to keep
going as long as there is breath in his body.
And so must you. There is no question that we face real problems right
now. Perhaps you lost your job. Or you lost a fortune. Or you lost your wife
or your self-confidence. Whatever the problem, whatever the cause—
whether it was this pandemic or just an ordinary stroke of bad luck—the
solution is the same. To keep going. To assemble your life, as Marcus
Aurelius advised himself, action by action. Inch by inch. Stacking small
step onto small step.
Because no one can stop you from that.
Today's meditation is about the power of small actions to add up over
time and make a big difference. And there's no better example of that
effect than having great habits. We've just put out an amazing new
six-week course, Habits for Success, Habits for Happiness, that will
reshape the way you look at your habits—and help you change them
for the better. Sign up today.

Listen to Today's Podcast

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