Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com. Alexander the Great, like so many talented people, wanted to be the best.
He wanted to have the most. He could not be satisfied, and this propelled him to great heights, great lengths, and greatness. It quite literally took him to the ends of the earth. As the poet Juvenal writes, when Alexander the Great was alive, the world was not big enough to contain his ambition.
But while Alexander chased at the confines of the world and life, in death, a coffin was enough. To the Stoics, to Marcus Aurelius in particular, this was a cautionary tale. We have to resist the delusion that our specialness makes us immune from criticism or consequences. We can't let our accomplishments fool us into thinking we are immortal, that we can outthink outrun, outwork, death, that we are exempted from the rules or from simply being a decent person.
Now, of course, today, few of us actually desire to conquer the world. Few of us truly think we are descended from the gods, but that doesn't mean that our egos can't get the best of us. It doesn't mean that our drives can't get ahead of us. It's why we have to stop and check ourselves.
The great Iron Maiden lyric is worth thinking about every so often. Measure your coffin, they say. Does it measure up to your lust? This thing that you're chasing that you want so badly, can you take it with you when you die?
This thing you're spending every waking moment on, is it worth, as Seneca asks, the cost of your life? Because that's what you're using to pay for it. Time. Time that you can never get back.
In the end, we all fit in the same small pine box, the same urn. So remember that. Let it humble you. Let it put things in perspective.