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May 5
Day 125/365: Marcus Aurelius on agency
Logan
May 05, 2025
Welcome to The Stoic Ledger, a daily money meditation from one of the Stoic sages.
125/365: Marcus Aurelius on agency
“Stop wandering about! You aren’t likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or the anthologies you’ve collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.” – Marcus Aurelius
Reading provides a fountain of knowledge to draw from, but it’s potential, latent, knowledge.
To activate the knowledge we must take action. Marcus Aurelius knew that we needed agency, the ability to create our own outcomes, the ability to be resourceful, the ability to bring about our own good fortune.
Where are you at on the agency scale? A passive traveler waiting for a more capable hand to help? Or the relentlessly resourceful misfit that alchemizes their own luck through sheer will?
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