Spring is the most beautiful of the seasons. Suddenly, after a dreary winter, the colors come back. The birds are out. The days last longer. The breeze is light and the air is cool.
But as Phillip Larkin's poem reminds us, beneath this turning of the seasons is a bittersweet truth.
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief
The inherent grief is the passage of time. It's a painful truth, the poem points out, written in the rings of the tree. Winter is dead and over…and all of us a little more so, too.
This notion serves as a gentle nudge, reminding us of the preciousness of every moment. It urges us not merely to exist but to truly live, to seize each season and extract its full potential.
Even though we can't control time or slow it down, even though we can't control external forces and external events—we can control ourselves, so we can control how we use our time. We can control what we choose to focus on with our time. We can control who we choose to be with our time.
Maybe 2026 hasn't gotten off to the start you'd hoped for. Maybe there were things you wanted to change or improve. Maybe there were things you wanted to let go of. Maybe you wanted to clear out the mental and physical clutter you've accumulated over the last year.
Don't write the year off just yet.
It's not too late to course-correct and reset. Think about how much of a difference the next 10 months could have on your life if you were thriving, not just surviving. If you were fully in control of yourself, instead of letting life and external circumstances control you. If you made intentional choices, instead of letting the chips fall where they may.
The 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge is designed to bring a fresh sense of clarity and purpose to your life—to help you take back valuable time in your life and refocus on how to use it to improve yourself and the world around you. It's a 10-day series of actionable challenges you'll take on one day at a time.
10 days of challenges built around Stoic principles
Invites to 2 LIVE Q&As with Ryan Holiday
Exclusive access to our members-only platform
Printable progress tracker
As Seneca reminds us, "We're tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest."
The choice is yours:
Will you let another season of growth march forward without you?
Will you let this time be lost to you forever as you stay in the same unfulfilling rut?
Or will you commit to just ten days of self-improvement—a chance to reset, refocus, and renew?
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