You must know that it is no easy thing for a principle to become a man’s own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it maintained, as well as work it out in life.
– Epictetus, The Philosophy of Epictetus XXX
If you want to get better at something, taking a day off isn’t a step forward. If anything, it’s one back.
One of my mentors, Joshua Spodek avoids saying you need to do something every day to get better at it. Because ‘need’ is not a valuable, productive (or attractive) quality for a person to have. But there is great value in doing something every day, every day, every day, every day, to improve yourself, those around you or the world we live in. Because as Josh says, ‘If you can miss one day, you can miss two, and if you can miss two, it’s all over.’
These are the things I’m currently doing every day:
- Writing a post on this blog (215 days straight now, since January)
- Learning Spanish
- Learning Japanese
- Chopping Wood (for exercise and strength)
- Read each day’s entry in The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
- Reading ancient Greek or Roman philosophy, but as little as possible, so as to think about what I’ve read and try live it (currently reading The Philosophy of Epictetus)
- Journalling every morning and every night
- Taking a cold shower every morning
- Taking my dog, Chunky for a walk , running with him down the local beach, and spending at least 5 minutes playing with him before going to work (no matter how late I’m running)
- Swimming in the ocean (no matter the weather)
- Picking up at least one piece of litter from the beach or sand dunes
Every day. There are no days off.