You read the words on the page each day. Maybe you let them sink in for a moment. Then you tear off the page and throw it away. You do it again the next day. And the next. On and on throughout the year. It sneaks up on you—it's almost Thanksgiving. I can't believe the year is almost over. November went by so fast.
Can you honestly say that you made the most of each of those days? Did you take advantage of the opportunities, the fresh starts, the time with your family?
The process of running through those tear-away page-a-day calendars (we have a Daily Stoic version) is a perfunctory one. You got it as a gift. You picked it up for a regular little dose of inspiration. You read the quote in the morning. You look at the beautiful picture. Laugh at the funny joke.
But you're almost certainly missing the deeper messages. The first, we talked about before, is that another day has passed—a day you've died, the Stoics said. But then, there is also the message that Philip Larkin notes in his beautiful poem, The Trees, which notes the passing of the seasons and what that means:
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Each yesterday you tear off is gone, dead. There's something sad about that. And while there is a little grief as you look at the next page, it also presents you an opportunity, a chance to begin afresh, afresh, afresh. Unless you waste it. Unless you let it pass by unaware. Then it too dies, and the loss is written down in your rings of grain, never to return.
P.S. In his letters to Lucilius, Seneca advises his friend to find one thing each day that will fortify him against death, despair, fear, or adversity. The Daily Stoic Page-A-Day calendar is designed to do just that. Each page includes a quote from Stoics like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus that will inspire you to meet life's challenges with virtue, curiosity, and confidence.
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