Ryan Holiday posted the following today in The Daily Stoic and I thought it was worth sharing. “We hear in Meditations Marcus Aurelius speak of “epithets for the self,” watchwords for his life. From Zeno to Marcus, the works of nearly every Stoic feature the repetition of four words, four virtues that go to the course of the philosophy: Courage. Justice. Moderation. Wisdom. These are mantras. These are reminders. A kind of living oral and written tradition for how to live and what kind of person to be. As beautiful—and in some cases, perfect—as these expressions are, we should remember that it’s a living tradition, one that can be added to and improved. Marcus himself writes about how if anyone ever finds a better list than those four virtues, it must be an extraordinary thing indeed. In 2016, the songwriter Lori McKenna took a stab at it . In a song that was written for her five young children and that has since become a hit for Tim McGraw ( as well as a book ), she puts together a ...
