And yet, I cannot escape the sense that disengaging from politics is itself a moral choice, not simply a neutral or quieter one. Our choices, whether to engage or avoid, are moral acts that shape our common life.

That thought has been with me because of recent events at my church, Hyde Park United Methodist in Tampa. Our Chancel Choir presented a concert of patriotic music; I organized a Voices for Justice: Using Your Voice through our Voices of Justice work; and over the next few weeks, our church is joining Faith250, an interfaith effort reflecting on America’s founding ideals as we near its 250th anniversary.

That is a lot of civic reflection in a short stretch of church life: patriotic music, training on public engagement, interfaith conversations about America’s future, and this Sunday’s sermon built around Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus”—words associated with the Statue of Liberty as a statement of welcome.

I do not think all of that landed together by accident. Or at least, it did not feel accidental to me.

The Citizen Engagement event was designed to be practical. We were not there to argue specific policies or turn the room into a partisan brawl. We were there to help people understand how government works, who has authority over what, and how ordinary citizens can speak clearly and effectively to the people who make decisions. That sounds simple, but it matters. Many people care deeply about housing, schools, immigration, inclusion, public safety, health care, and the common good, but they do not always know where to begin. They know something feels wrong. They know they want to help. But the machinery of government can feel distant and confusing.

So we tried to make it less distant. Less mysterious. Less intimidating.

At the heart of the evening was a simple idea: citizenship is ongoing, not just voting every few years. It involves learning who represents you, understanding which level of government can address issues, and writing, calling, showing up, asking questions, and practicing persuasion. Listening may be the part we are worst at right now.

As I thought about that evening, I recalled a line often attributed to the late Congressman Barney Frank: “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” This has become, for me, not just a political observation but the central moral argument of public life.

If government is what we choose to do together, public life becomes a stage where our collective moral choices are made visible. Budgets, laws, and policies express our vision of justice, inclusion, and responsibility. Every decision reveals what and whom we value as a society, connecting politics to our deepest moral commitments.

This is where the idea of Stoicism becomes especially relevant to public life and our moral choices within it, though perhaps not in the way that people often assume.

Many misunderstand Stoicism as withdrawal or apathy toward public affairs, believing it means staying calm and refusing deep concern. According to this misconception, the ideal Stoic might ignore problems, saying, “Well, smoke is outside my control.” However, authentic Stoicism is not passive detachment; it is active discernment.

The Stoics were not teaching us to be indifferent to suffering or injustice. They were teaching us not to be ruled by fear, anger, ego, or despair. That is a very different thing. Marcus Aurelius was an emperor. Seneca lived near power, sometimes too near it. Cato the Younger became a symbol of political resistance and moral conviction. These were not people living in caves, safely above the world’s complications. They were entangled in public life, and they knew how dangerous that entanglement could be.

The key Stoic question is not whether public life matters, but how we can enter politics with integrity, resisting its corrupting tendencies and holding fast to our moral core.

Politics is good at making us worse. It rewards certainty over reflection and outrage over understanding. Contempt feels powerful, gives us enemies, and can turn our moral concern for justice into hatred or vanity.

The Stoics would warn us against that drift.

The Stoic tradition lists justice among its four central virtues, together with wisdom, courage, and temperance. For the Stoics, justice is the active recognition that we are social beings interconnected by nature. A principle vital for public engagement. As Marcus Aurelius observed, “What harms the hive harms the bee,” a succinct expression of Stoic citizenship and mutual responsibility.

If that is true, then a person seeking to live with virtue cannot retreat entirely into private calm. Calm matters, but it is not the whole of goodness. A peaceful heart that never moves toward justice is not yet complete. It may simply be comfortable.

This is where Stoicism begins to sound less like an ancient philosophy and more like the wisdom found across many traditions.

In Judaism, the idea of repairing the world carries a deep moral pull. The prophets do not describe justice as optional. They do not say, “Think kind thoughts about the poor.” They call people to defend the vulnerable, protect the stranger, and correct systems that crush the weak. Justice is not decoration on the edges of faith. It is part of the structure.

Christianity carries the same demand in its own voice. The Sermon on the Mount blesses the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus does not tell the parable of the Good Samaritan so we can admire compassion from a distance. He tells us so we will recognize the neighbor as the wounded person on the road, even when that person falls outside our preferred circle. The moral question is not whether we feel bad for him. The moral question is whether we cross the road.

In the Methodist tradition, this has often been described as the connection between personal holiness and social holiness. Faith is not only what happens in prayer, worship, and private devotion. It also happens in schools, hospitals, prisons, voting booths, community meetings, and public policy. A faith that never touches public life has not fully touched life.

Eastern traditions add another layer. Buddhism teaches compassion with non-attachment. That is an important balance for anyone engaged in politics. We act to reduce suffering but do not tie ourselves to outcomes. We work without letting the work turn us bitter, or our caring become possession. The Bhagavad Gita teaches doing one’s duty without clinging to results: do what is yours, release what is not.

That is almost a perfect description of Stoic citizenship.

We cannot control whether a legislator listens, a council votes our way, or a court acts wisely. But we can control whether we are informed, truthful, prepared, and whether our words clarify or inflame. We can decide if anger sharpens our courage or overcomes us.

That distinction matters. The dichotomy of control does not tell us to stop acting. It tells us where to place our energy. The outcome is not ours. The effort is. The vote may not go our way. The testimony is still ours to give. The letter may not change a mind. The letter is still ours to write. The meeting may not produce the policy we hoped for. Showing up still matters.

This is the discipline of public life: acting for the common good without guarantee of results, guided by the conviction that our moral choices, in public and private, matter collectively.

The upcoming sermon on “The New Colossus” feels like part of this same moral conversation. Emma Lazarus’s poem imagines liberty not as a clenched fist, but as a lamp. Not as conquest, but as welcome. The Statue of Liberty becomes the “Mother of Exiles,” holding light beside a door. That image has power because it asks what kind of nation we believe ourselves to be.

It is easy to make patriotism loud. It is harder to make it honest.

Patriotism that only celebrates itself becomes sentimental. Patriotism that cannot face suffering becomes denial. But patriotism rooted in moral responsibility asks better questions. Who is outside the gate? Who has been told they do not belong? Who is tired, poor, displaced, afraid, or simply unheard? Who has been reduced to a problem when they are, first of all, a person?

Those are not merely political questions. They are spiritual questions. They are Stoic questions too, because they ask whether we truly understand our shared humanity.

The Stoics spoke of being citizens of the world. That phrase can sound lofty, almost too beautiful to be useful. But it has practical consequences. If I am a citizen of the world, then my circle of concern cannot stop at my front door, my church, my party, my race, my class, my country, or my comfort. The circle must widen. Hierocles, another Stoic thinker, imagined our relationships as circles, beginning with the self and expanding outward to family, community, nation, and humanity. The task was to draw the outer circles closer.

That image has stayed with me. It is also what the best forms of politics are meant to do. Not politics as domination. Not politics as a team sport. Not politics as endless grievance. But politics as the practice of drawing more people into the circle of concern.

That was what I saw, in a modest way, at our Citizen Engagement training. People came because they cared. They wanted to know how to use their voices more effectively. They wanted to understand where power sits and how to speak to it. They were not trying to become professional activists or political operatives. They were trying to become better citizens.

That may sound small, but I do not think it is.

Most of the work that sustains a democracy is small. A person learns who represents them. Someone writes an email. A neighbor attends a meeting. A church hosts a forum. A volunteer prints guides, sets up chairs, and makes sure the microphones work. Someone asks a better question. Someone tells a story that puts a human face on a policy. Someone who felt alone realizes there are others in the room who care too.

The loudest moments in politics get the attention, but the quieter ones may do more to hold us together.

Of course, this kind of work can be frustrating. Anyone who has tried to influence government knows that progress is slow, uneven, and often disappointing. People in power do not always listen. Systems protect themselves. Good ideas get buried. Bad ideas move quickly. Sometimes the meeting goes nowhere. Sometimes the vote fails. Sometimes people you thought would stand firm decide it is easier not to.

The Stoic citizen expects this. Not cynically, but realistically. Premeditatio malorum, the Stoic practice of anticipating difficulty, applies here too. Before entering public life, we should expect delay, resistance, misunderstanding, and failure. Not so we can give up, but so we are not shattered when they arrive. If we expect politics to be pure, we will not last long. If we expect it to be human, flawed, and necessary, we may have a chance.

The point is not to avoid disappointment. The point is to avoid being governed by it.

That may be the lesson I need most. I can get angry. I can get impatient. I can look at cruelty dressed up as policy and feel something hot rise in me. Maybe that is not always wrong. Anger can be a signal that something sacred is being violated. But anger is a terrible place to live. If I let it take over, it will make me less useful. It will narrow my vision. It will turn people into categories. It will convince me that being right is enough.

The Stoics remind me that being right is not enough. I also have to be wise. I must be courageous. I must be just. I must be temperate. The manner of my engagement matters because character is not suspended when politics begins. If anything, politics reveals it.

That does not mean being soft in the face of injustice. It does not mean pretending all positions are equally moral or that every argument deserves equal respect. Some policies harm people. Some rhetoric endangers people. Some silence enables harm. The Stoic is not called to be neutral about injustice. The Stoic is called to oppose injustice without becoming unjust.

That is a narrow path. I do not always walk it well. But I think it is the path worth trying to walk.

The patriotic concert, the Citizen Engagement training, Faith250, and the sermon on “The New Colossus” have all pressed the same question into my mind. What do we owe to one another? Not in theory. Not in a slogan. In practice. In the policies we support, the meetings we attend, the letters we write, the votes we cast, the neighbors we notice, and the strangers we decide to welcome.

If government is what we choose to do together, then we should choose with care. We should choose with memory. We should choose with moral seriousness. We should choose knowing that the choices become roads people must walk, doors people may or may not enter, burdens people may or may not be forced to carry.

The Stoic citizen does not control the whole outcome. No one does. But the Stoic citizen can still stand in the public square with a clear mind and a steady heart. They can refuse despair. They can resist cruelty. They can speak the truth without surrendering to hatred. They can work for justice while remembering that the work is larger than one election, one hearing, one sermon, one training, or one life.

That is enough for a beginning.

Maybe that is what I saw on Tuesday evening. Not a grand solution. Not a revolution. Just ordinary people gathering in a church to learn how to take responsibility for the world they share. People trying to understand what is theirs to do.

And maybe that is where hope begins. Not in certainty that we will win, but in the decision to participate with integrity.

To lift a lamp.

To widen the circle. 

She wondered what a similar event held by “the other side” might look like. Would they just sit around saying ugly things about “us”?

I understood the question. We live in a time when many people assume every public gathering has a hidden partisan agenda. Still, I explained that our programs are intended to be nonpartisan. For example, when planning events, we ensure we do not endorse any candidates or political parties and invite speakers with a range of perspectives. We encourage participants to ask questions and form their own opinions.

Whenever we present information, our team uses sources from across the spectrum and fact-checks them for accuracy. Even when we deal with difficult public issues, the aim is to focus on facts, civic engagement, and how people can participate responsibly. This particular evening was not about telling anyone what issue to support. It was about helping people understand how to speak with elected officials, agencies, and public leaders on whatever issue mattered to them.

She looked at me very seriously and said, “Well, I’m here to tell you this was definitely partisan.”

I have thought about that moment ever since. Not because I felt wounded by it. I did not. Not because I believe every event I touch descends from the heavens in perfect neutrality. It does not. But because her reaction seemed to reveal something larger than that one conversation.

It raised a question I think all of us need to sit with.

When do we call something partisan because it actually is partisan, and when do we call it partisan because it brushes against our own assumptions? Before reaching for the word “partisan,” it can help to pause and ask ourselves a few questions for reflection: Am I reacting to the content, or to how it challenges my own beliefs? Did I notice facts being presented fairly, or am I noticing my agreement or disagreement with what was said? Were different viewpoints given space, or am I focusing only on what felt uncomfortable? Taking a moment to consider these questions can help us check our assumptions and respond more thoughtfully.

There is a difference between being partisan and being principled.

Partisan work begins with party loyalty. It asks who benefits politically. It sorts people into teams. It measures success by whether one side gains an advantage over the other.

Principled work begins somewhere else. It asks what is true. What is fair? What harms people? What helps them? What responsibility do citizens have to one another and to the public life they share? Barney Frank once said, “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” That line has always struck me because it reminds us that, at its best, politics is not just party warfare. It is the shared work of deciding what kind of community we are willing to build.

Those questions can have political consequences. Of course, they can. Nearly every moral question eventually touches policy. Housing touches policy. Education touches policy. Poverty touches policy. Human dignity touches policy. Even the simple act of teaching people how to contact an elected official touches policy because democracy itself depends on public participation.

But that does not make the act partisan. If a church teaches people how to speak to power, that is not automatically partisan. If a civic group explains how legislation works, that is not automatically partisan. If people are encouraged to advocate for what they believe with clarity and respect, that is not automatically partisan. It may be uncomfortable. That is different.

Our minds are not neutral recording devices. We do not simply take in information, process it cleanly, and produce an objective judgment. That would be nice, but so would a printer that works the first time. We live in the real world.

Psychologists have long studied the ways our beliefs shape what we notice. Motivated reasoning is one name for it. We tend to give more weight to information that protects what we already believe and more suspicion to information that challenges it. Confirmation bias works in a similar way. We notice the evidence that supports our expectations and miss the evidence that complicates them.

This happens to conservatives. It happens to liberals. It happens to moderates, independents, clergy, activists, journalists, and retired guys who spend too much time thinking about public life. Nobody gets a free pass.

There is another idea called the hostile media effect. Researchers found that people on opposite sides of a controversial issue could watch the same news coverage, and both sides would see it as biased against them. Same story. Same footage. Same words. Different conclusions.

That should humble us.

It means two people can sit in the same room and experience almost entirely different events in their heads. One person hears useful civic training. Another hears progressive activism. Another hears a call to responsible citizenship. Another hears a threat. The event did not change. The filter did.

This is especially true when moral issues enter the room. Once a subject becomes connected to our sense of right and wrong, our defenses rise quickly. We stop hearing a discussion and start hearing a challenge. We stop asking, “Is this true?” and begin asking, “What does this say about my side?” That is where the word partisan becomes slippery.

Sometimes it is accurate. Some events are plainly designed to promote a party, candidate, or ideology. We should be honest about that.

But sometimes “partisan” becomes a label we use to avoid engaging with the moral weight of a subject. If an issue makes us uncomfortable, we call it partisan. If a conversation asks more from us than we expected, we call it partisan. If the facts lean against the story we prefer, we call it partisan. That move lets us dismiss the room without wrestling with what was said in it.

There is danger in that. If every moral concern is reduced to party politics, then nothing can be discussed honestly. Hunger becomes partisan. Housing becomes partisan. Public education becomes partisan. Voting rights become partisan. Kindness becomes suspect. Even basic civic participation starts looking like a plot.

That is no way to sustain a democracy. It is barely a way to survive Thanksgiving dinner.

A healthy public life requires the ability to tell the difference between party work and moral work. It requires us to ask better questions before reaching for easy labels. Was a candidate endorsed? Was one party promoted over another? Were people told what to think, or were they given tools to act on their own convictions? Were facts presented fairly? Were people invited into public responsibility rather than political obedience?

Those questions matter.

The woman who spoke to me may have honestly experienced the event as partisan. I do not doubt her sincerity. But sincerity is not the same as accuracy. All of us can be sincere and still mistaken. All of us can misread a room because we carry too much of our own story into it. That is the uncomfortable truth here.

The question is not whether she had a bias. She did. So do I. So do you. The better question is whether we are willing to notice our biases before we turn them into accusations.

I still believe the event was nonpartisan. More than that, I believe it was principled. It encouraged people to participate in public life, to speak with clarity, and to understand how decisions are made. At the same time, I recognize that perceptions of partisanship can be deeply personal and complex. Experiences like this remind me that reasonable people can see the same event differently. Rather than ending the conversation, I hope it becomes an opening for ongoing, respectful dialogue about what it looks like to engage across our differences and what true nonpartisanship requires. If that now feels partisan, then perhaps the problem is not the event.

Because democracy cannot function if every effort to help people use their voice is treated as suspicious. It cannot function if public engagement is only acceptable when it serves our side. It cannot function if we assume bad faith before we have done the harder work of listening.

Principle will sometimes make people uncomfortable. It should. A principle that never disturbs anyone is probably just a preference wearing nicer shoes. But discomfort is not proof of partisanship. Sometimes it is proof that something real has entered the room.

And when that happens, the better response is not to slap a label on it and walk away. Instead, pause and reflect honestly on what was said.

Then ask what we brought with us.

That may sound harsh, but I do not mean it as an accusation. Maybe some people say it as a kind of courage. Maybe they mean they have made peace with their lives. I can respect that. But taken literally, the claim has always sounded a little too clean to me. If you have lived long enough, loved deeply enough, failed honestly enough, or hurt someone along the way, regret finds you sooner or later.

James Baldwin put it plainly. “Though we would like to live without regrets, and sometimes proudly insist that we have none, this is not really possible, if only because we are mortal.” That feels true. We are limited creatures moving through limited time. Every choice closes other choices. Every road taken leaves another road unexplored. Every relationship receives either our attention or our neglect. To live is to choose, and to choose is to leave something behind.

The question is not whether we will have regrets. We will. The better question is what we do with them.

Regret can be a brutal companion. It visits at odd hours. It shows up while driving, while trying to sleep, while hearing an old song, while scrolling past the name of someone we once knew well. It can remind us of a word spoken too sharply, a kindness withheld, a conversation avoided, a letter never written, or a friend allowed to drift into silence. Sometimes it comes from things we did. Sometimes it comes from things we fail to do. Both can leave a mark.

The Stoics understood this better than many people assume. Stoicism is often misunderstood as an effort to feel nothing, to become hard, detached, and untouched by life. That was never the point. The Stoics were not trying to erase emotion. They were trying to examine it, discipline it, and keep it from ruling the soul. Regret, then, is not automatically an enemy. It becomes dangerous only when it stops teaching and starts consuming.

Seneca practiced a nightly review of his day. He examined what he had done, what he had said, where he had fallen short, and where he had done well. That was not an exercise in self-loathing. It was moral housekeeping. He was not trying to crawl into bed ashamed of himself. He was trying to wake up a little wiser. The point was not to keep the wound open. The point was to learn where the wound came from and how to avoid making the same cut again.

Daniel Pink, in The Power of Regret, argues that regret is one of our most useful emotions when we handle it well. He identifies common kinds of regret, including foundation regrets, boldness regrets, moral regrets, and connection regrets. I can recognize myself in all of them. Most of us can. The value of that framework is not that it lets us neatly categorize our pain. Life is rarely that tidy. Its value is that it reminds us regret often points toward something we care about deeply.

A moral regret points toward character. A connection regret points toward love. A boldness regret points toward courage. A foundation regret points toward the habits and choices that shape the rest of life. Regret is painful because it reveals a gap between the person we were in a moment and the person we hoped to be. That gap can break us down, or it can become instruction.

I have been thinking of regret as life’s tuition. Nobody wants to pay it. Sometimes it is painfully expensive. But if we refuse to learn the lesson, we pay the tuition and never receive the education. That image has stayed with me because it feels honest. Some lessons in life arrive gently. Others send a bill. I have paid some tuition. We all have.

One recent example is my job loss. I sensed the possibility before it happened. The signs were there. Funding issues. Organizational uncertainty. The familiar quiet that settles in before decisions are announced. I took some steps, but not enough. I did not move as aggressively as I should have. Part of me kept hoping the situation would stabilize. Part of me thought that if I worked harder, proved more useful, or stayed visible enough, I might hold back the tide.

That was not wisdom. That was reluctance dressed up as loyalty.

The Stoic lesson is not that I should punish myself for that. What good would that do now? The lesson is that when conditions change, I need to see them clearly and act sooner. Epictetus taught that some things are within our control and others are not. I could not control the funding streams, the company’s decisions, or the timing of the layoff. I could control my preparation, my networking, my applications, and my willingness to move before I was forced to move.

Regret is real, but it is not useless. It has already taught me to pay attention to the conditions around me. It has taught me not to wait until the bridge is burning before looking for another road. It has forced me, late in life, to rethink my place in the world and the shape of the years ahead. That is not a small lesson. It is an expensive one, but it is not wasted if I let it change how I live from here.

Other regrets live in a softer but deeper place. I think often about friends I have lost to time, distance, misunderstanding, or silence. Some people leave our lives because of death. Others leave because the years carry them away. Some leave because we fail to ask the question, make the call, or clear up the misunderstanding while there is still time.

I have known the particular regret of misunderstanding someone and then letting the silence harden. Instead of asking for clarity, I have sometimes allowed hurt feelings to become resentment. That is one of regret’s more selfish transformations. We begin with pain, but if we hold it too long, it curdles into a private story in which we are always the wounded party. We stop seeking truth and start defending our version of events. That kind of regret does not make us wiser. It makes us smaller.

The Stoic response is honesty. If an apology is needed, offer it. If clarification is possible, seek it. If harm was done, repair what can be repaired. If the person is gone from our lives and repair is no longer possible, then we carry the lesson forward. The next person we meet should not have to pay the bill for our last mistake.

That may be one of the most practical forms of redemption available to us. We cannot always undo the harm we cause. We cannot always recover the friendship. We cannot always say the words to the person who needed to hear them then. But we can become someone who speaks more gently now. We can become someone who clarifies sooner. We can become someone who does not let pride turn a misunderstanding into a wall.

Kierkegaard wrote that life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward. That sentence may be one of the clearest descriptions of regret I know. Regret asks us to look backward, but it becomes destructive when we try to live there. The past can instruct us. It cannot receive us. We are not allowed to move back into it and rearrange the furniture, and if we’re always looking back, we will eventually run into a wall.

This is where my thoughts often return to what I have heard called the last great days. Years ago, I heard Greta Gerwig say that  “you do not know when the last time something is happening will be. You do not know the last great day you will spend with your best friend. You only know later, when you realize you never had that day again.” That thought has followed me for years. It has shaped much of my writing and, more importantly, much of my living.

There is sadness in it. Of course there is. I think of old friends from high school and college. I think of easy afternoons in Boone, card games in Tampa, golf rounds in Kings Mountain, lunches with people who once felt like permanent fixtures in my life. Some friendships faded with no dramatic ending. They simply thinned out until they became memory. Others were changed by distance, silence, or the complicated weather of growing older.

That can become regret if I let it. I could sit with those memories and ache over what cannot be restored. Some days, I do. But the better lesson is not to mourn the last great day forever. The better lesson is to create another one while I still can.

So I try now to stay more connected with the people who matter to me. I send the message. I make the call. I set the lunch. I take a walk along the Riverwalk with a friend. I try to hold people near in thought and place as much as life allows. Not every effort succeeds. Some people remain distant. Some doors do not reopen. But the effort matters because it keeps regret from becoming mere nostalgia. It turns memory into action.

My mother’s final season sharpened this lesson. When a parent grows old and frail, time takes on a different shape. Ordinary visits carry more weight. A family reunion is no longer just a family reunion. It may be one of the last times. A drive to Kings Mountain is no longer just a drive. It is a choice to show up while showing up is still possible. There are things I wish I had asked earlier, stories I wish I had written down, conversations I wish I had lingered over. But even there, regret has a task. It reminds me to pay attention now to the living, not only to grieve the dead.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Let each thing you would do, say, or intend be like that of a dying person.” That sounds severe until life teaches you what he meant. He was not telling us to be gloomy. He was telling us not to postpone what matters. Say the thing. Offer the kindness. Make the visit. Let the petty irritation pass. The clock is moving whether we approve or not.

Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” That may be one of the gentlest summaries of practical wisdom. It leaves room for growth without excusing harm. It acknowledges that we fail, learn, and continue. The point is not to pretend our regrets are noble. Some are not. Some reveal cowardice, carelessness, pride, or neglect. But if we know better now, then the only honorable response is to do better now.

This is where regret becomes connected to the Stoic virtues. Wisdom asks us to see the regret clearly. Courage asks us to face it without denial. Justice asks us to make amends where we can. Temperance asks us not to drown in it. The goal is not to become a person with no regrets. The goal is to become a person whose regrets have been put to use.

There is a difference between carrying wisdom and carrying regret. Wisdom is light enough to travel with. Regret, once its lesson has been learned, becomes too heavy for the road ahead. We are not meant to drag every failure, missed chance, and unspoken word behind us forever. We are meant to learn from them, make what repairs we can, and then return to the work of living.

Regret is a classroom, not a home. We enter because life has something to teach us. We sit with the discomfort long enough to understand the lesson. We make amends if we can. We change what needs changing. Then we get up and leave.

The friend we failed to call teaches us to call the next one. The kindness we failed to offer teaches us to offer it tomorrow. The harsh word teaches us to speak with more care. The job loss teaches us to act sooner when the signs are clear. The last great day teaches us not to cling to the past, but to create new great days while we still can.

That is what regret is for.

Not punishment. Not permanent sorrow. Not resentment.

Regret is life asking whether we are willing to become wiser because of what we can no longer change. If we are, then even our mistakes are not wasted. The tuition may have been high, but the education is real. And with that education in hand, we turn toward the next task, the next friendship, the next apology, the next walk, the next lunch, the next ordinary day that may one day shine in memory as great.

I went home to help my sisters with the work that follows a parent’s death. We packed boxes, sorted papers, and decided what stayed or went. We closed the home where my mother had lived for over sixty years, the place that had shaped my sense of “home” all my life.

Before leaving, I made a short detour to Boone.

For years, Boone has been where I go to reset. Something in the mountains, the air, and the slower rhythm refreshes my perspective. This time was no different, at least for a few hours. I wandered through town, revisited familiar places, and breathed before heading into a long drive and an even longer emotional transition. Because the next morning, I still had ten hours of interstate ahead of me.

After making that trip more than a hundred times since moving to Tampa, the drive is almost automatic. I leave early to avoid traffic and settle into the highway’s rhythm. Somewhere in South Carolina or Georgia, the car seems to know the way without much help from me.

That leaves a lot of room to think.

And on that drive, I thought about what had changed in such a short period of time. My mother was gone. The house was no longer really home in the way it once had been. My work life had changed dramatically. What once felt settled now felt uncertain. Even Boone, still comforting, now brought the realization that these trips north would likely become less frequent.

Somewhere on I-95, with the road stretching ahead of me, I found myself asking a question that I suspect eventually finds all of us in one form or another.

What now?

I first encountered Viktor Frankl in college. Like many students, I read Man’s Search for Meaning because it had been assigned. It affected me even then, though probably in an abstract way, as many important books do when we are young. I understood the ideas intellectually. But I had not yet lived enough to fully understand what they were asking of a person.

Years later, I reread Frankl after my pastor, Rev. Magrey deVega, mentioned his life in a sermon. This time, the words landed differently. Age, grief, and change shift not only how we read important books, but whether we are finally ready to hear them.

Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. His experiences in Nazi concentration camps shaped the work for which he would later become known. Much of his family, including his wife and parents, died during the Holocaust. Frankl survived Auschwitz and several other camps, carrying not only immense loss but also a question that would define his work. What allows a person to continue when nearly everything has been taken away?

Frankl rejected the idea that human beings are motivated solely by pleasure or power. He believed that what we seek most deeply is meaning. Not abstract meaning, but concrete meaning rooted in responsibility, love, suffering, work, and the choices we continue to make even under terrible conditions.

His most famous line is often quoted because it carries such weight.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms. To choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

It is tempting to turn that into motivational language. Frankl deserves better than that.

He was not suggesting that suffering is somehow good, or that human beings can simply think their way through catastrophe in a positive way. He knew too much suffering to romanticize it. In fact, one of the striking things about Frankl’s writing is how little sentimentality there is in it. His observations are often calm, restrained, and almost clinical. He understood that suffering can diminish people. It can exhaust them, embitter them, break them.

But he also believed that even in those conditions, something remains. Choice remains. Responsibility remains. Meaning remains possible. I think that distinction matters.

Most of us will never face anything remotely comparable to what Frankl endured, and we should be careful not to flatten ordinary suffering into historical atrocities. But that does not mean Frankl has nothing to say to ordinary life. If anything, his work becomes especially important there.

Because eventually life destabilizes all of us in one way or another. A parent dies. A career shifts unexpectedly. A relationship changes. A body ages. A future once assumed begins to unfold in another way. Though not the horrors Frankl survived, these moments still leave us standing in unfamiliar territory, wondering what comes next.

That question is real. I know it has been real for me.

There are days lately when I feel tired but determined. I feel uncertain, but I am moving forward. I am rebuilding, though I am not always entirely sure what I am rebuilding toward. There are moments of anger and frustration mixed in with long periods of reflection. Probably, I spend more time reflecting than is always helpful.

And still, daily life continues.

There are errands to run, responsibilities to manage, decisions to make, people to care for, and work to finish. Even as I determine what the next season of work will hold, I keep going. Most mornings begin with a walk through my neighborhood because movement settles my thoughts. Sometimes the next meaningful thing isn’t profound. Sometimes it’s simply clearing one more task, making one more decision, or taking one more step before I fully know where the road leads.

Frankl would have understood that better than many modern readers do. Meaning, for him, was rarely grandiose. It was specific. Immediate. Practical.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl describes prisoners comforting one another, giving away their last piece of bread. Some chose dignity in situations meant to strip it away. Meaning was not found by escaping suffering, but by answering it. By deciding who to be within it.

That idea reaches far beyond catastrophic suffering. But Frankl’s idea applies to ordinary days, not just to times of catastrophic suffering.

How do we respond when life becomes unstable? How do we continue caring for others when we ourselves feel exhausted? How do we keep moving without becoming bitter? How do we continue choosing responsibility instead of withdrawal?

These are not abstract philosophical questions. They are daily ones.

I think that may be why Frankl’s work continues to resonate so deeply across generations. He does not promise clarity, comfort, or easy resolution. He does not tell us that suffering always happens for a reason. Instead, he suggests something both harder and more hopeful. That human beings retain the ability to respond meaningfully even when circumstances are painful, uncertain, or unfair. Certainly not perfectly, but intentionally.

Amid transition and grief, I have tried to continue practicing the disciplines and responsibilities that shape my days. I maintain routines that help steady me physically and emotionally. I continue my community work, organizing forums, citizen engagement, and justice programs, even as my own life feels unsettled.

Not because I have everything figured out. But meaning often lives in continuing to participate in life rather than retreating from it. Because I believe in the holiness of ordinary days.

Frankl understood that deeply.

There is a line from Frankl that I have returned to several times while writing this essay.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

I do not think he meant that casually.

I think he meant it as someone who had discovered that humans can survive far more uncertainty than they imagine. This is possible if they can still find a reason to keep moving forward.

Not all at once. Just enough for the next step. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. may have held Frankl in mind when he wrote, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

That ten-hour drive back to Tampa did not resolve anything.

My grief remained. My uncertainty remained. The future was still unsettled when I pulled into my driveway. In many ways, it still is.

During the drive from North Carolina to Florida, I realized that meaning doesn’t always arrive as a revelation. More often, it appears as a continuation. As a responsibility. Choosing to remain engaged with life even while rebuilding it.

Maybe that is the last human freedom Frankl was talking about.

Not the freedom to avoid suffering.

But the freedom to decide what we will continue carrying forward through it.

About Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl endured unimaginable loss during the Holocaust. Between 1942 and 1945, he was imprisoned in four different Nazi concentration camps, including Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.

While Frankl survived, nearly his entire immediate family was murdered. His wife, Tilly, died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen shortly after liberation. His mother, Elsa, was murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz soon after arrival. His father, Gabriel, died of starvation and pneumonia in Theresienstadt. Viktor tried to care for him. His brother, Walter, was captured attempting to escape Austria and was also murdered at Auschwitz.

The only immediate family member who survived was his sister, Stella, who escaped Austria and eventually emigrated to Australia.

Out of this profound personal tragedy, and his observations of human behavior within the camps, Frankl developed logotherapy, a school of psychiatry centered on the belief that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but the pursuit of meaning.

However, Brittany Lyssy’s late entry into this race brought a clear change in both tone and funding. The original candidates, including Chris, are known for their steady work in local classrooms and on the mentor’s playing field. In contrast, Lyssy seems like an outsider who wants to use our local board as a policy laboratory. She is currently pursuing a PhD from Liberty University, a school with a specific political view. Her main strengths seem to be based on political theory, not on the daily realities of Hillsborough students.

One indicator of this shift appears in the campaign’s fundraising numbers. A closer look at Lyssy’s $42,875.00 in fundraising suggests a substantial portion comes from outside our county. Excluding her personal loan, a staggering 45.5% of her total donations are from sources beyond Hillsborough County, including contributions from Tallahassee-based PACs such as “Common Sense Conservatives,” government relations firms, and law practices in Clearwater and Orlando.

When a school board seat draws significant outside funding and interest from Tallahassee-aligned legal contributors, it is reasonable to reflect on the importance of local voices in such races. Our community benefits most from board members who prioritize the needs of students and families in District 2. Chris Taylor has continuously demonstrated a strong focus on these local priorities through his years of service.

Hillsborough deserves a board member who brings both understanding and experience to our schools. Chris Taylor offers steady, expert leadership, demonstrated through years of daily service. In a time where outside influences may shape public institutions, our choice should reflect trust in locally rooted, proven leadership. Chris Taylor exemplifies competence, independence, and a longstanding commitment to our community.

On one side is the incumbent, Donna Cameron-Cepeda, who regularly uses the “Dr.” honorific. She received her doctorate from Life Christian University, which is a ministerial institution that clearly states it is not accredited by regional or federal academic bodies.¹ Her degree is religious and not recognized as an academic or professional doctorate by accreditation authorities. On the other side is Dr. Neil Manimala, a board-certified medical doctor. He earned his medical degree from the University of South Florida, completed years of surgical residency, and practices as a urologist.

This is not merely a dispute over academic pedigree. It is a fundamental question of how leaders apply their experience to their constituents’ lives.

The Theology of Contradiction – The incumbent’s brand of leadership often reveals a disconnect between personal experience and public policy. In 2021, the Cameron-Cepeda household faced a profound crisis when her husband, Raymond Thomas, was hospitalized for two months with COVID-19. He was placed on a ventilator, a situation she later described as a “miracle” of survival. In her public accounts, she expressed gratitude to both “Jesus and the doctors.”²

However, since taking office, her policy positions have often been at odds with the very medical community that provided that life-saving care. Though she acknowledged the need for advanced interventions, she became a vocal critic of public health measures, aligning with movements dismissing vaccines and basic mitigation strategies. This raises a difficult question: why support the undermining of a healthcare system that proved essential to your own family?

The Safety Net and the Ladder – This pattern of contradiction extends to her fiscal record. Before her election, Cameron-Cepeda lived in New Life Village, an affordable housing community designed to support families in transition.³ She used the public safety nets available to help people during times of financial hardship and lift up her family, and then pulled up the ladder behind her.

Yet, as Commissioner, she led efforts to significantly reduce the HOPE housing trust fund, instead reallocating those millions to road paving. She also voted to phase out recurring nonprofit funding by 2029.( (Hillsborough County Commission Minutes)) Her approach accepts public benefits when needed but treats those same resources as expendable in power.

A Professional Alternative – Dr. Neil Manimala’s entrance into the race provides a contrast rooted in verified professional competence. As a physician who serves on the board of the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan, Manimala’s understanding of the social safety net is not theoretical. He sees the direct results of housing instability and healthcare gaps in his daily practice.

The community’s response to this contrast has been reflected in the early campaign landscape. While the incumbent’s campaign has struggled to gain traction with donors, Dr. Manimala has already raised more than 10 times as much campaign money as Cameron-Cepeda.⁴ This disparity suggests that even within the donor class, there is a desire for a leader whose primary focus is on solving complex problems rather than engaging in cultural grievances.

Internal Dissatisfaction –  The incumbent is also facing a formidable challenge from within her own party, underscoring that unease with her leadership style is widespread. Stacy Hahn, currently a member of the Hillsborough County Board of Education, has filed to challenge Cameron-Cepeda in the Republican primary. When an incumbent in a Republican-leaning county draws a challenge from another well-respected Republican official, it serves as a powerful barometer for deep internal dissatisfaction. This is not a nominal primary; Hahn’s initial fundraising effort of $63,575—compared to Cameron-Cepeda’s continued low numbers—confirms that key segments of the local conservative base have already decided to look for an alternative. It is a loud, clear signal that even those who share her party label are concerned that the “Dr.” has left the bread-and-butter needs of the county behind in favor of culture-war performance.

The Choice – Hillsborough County voters will soon face a choice between two versions of leadership. They can choose a “Paper Doctor” who acknowledges the miracle of medicine only when it hits home, and who benefited from affordable housing only to vote against it for others. Or, they can choose a “Real Doctor” who has spent his career in the measurable, quiet work of healing.

In a time of loud political theater, the most effective leader is often the one who speaks with the calm authority of experience.

1. Life Christian University Catalog ↩

2. Glory Ministries International ↩

3. Hillsborough County Financial Disclosures, 2022 ↩

4. Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections ↩

Wostal came to Hillsborough County about a decade ago, using a UF MBA and a shipping business as a springboard to win a seat on the Commission. He aligns more with the “Influencer-Politician” model than a traditional public servant. His actions prioritize rewarding loyal supporters and reducing protections for vulnerable residents, channeling public resources to benefit a small group instead of the broader community.

Wostal wraps himself in the flag of the “Small Business Owner,” but he governs like a corporate raider. He claims to have uncovered “waste” in non-government funding, but his targets are almost always the safety nets that keep the “little guy” afloat or a working mom in Brandon from going bankrupt.

The War on the “Ghost” Voter

Nothing captures the Wostal brand of “calculated cruelty” better than his successful 4-3 vote to slash $200,000 from the Supervisor of Elections budget in the middle of a presidential election cycle.¹ He justified it by labeling 100,000 eligible citizens, real people with jobs, families, and addresses, as “ghost voters.” A dehumanizing term for neighbors who simply haven’t moved in a few years.

This wasn’t about fiscal responsibility; it was a pre-emptive disenfranchisement. By defunding the office that ensures every voice is heard, he is telling the voters of Hillsborough: “If I can’t win your support, I will make it harder for you to vote.” A man who attacks the referee is a man who knows his record can’t survive a fair game.

Wostal is practicing what we’ve seen nationwide: a confession through projection. When he claims he’s protecting the “integrity” of the vote, he is actually ensuring that the referee is too underfunded to call the fouls. For a man who wraps himself in the flag, his willingness to treat the right to vote as a “wasteful expense” is a moral abomination.

Stranding South County

If his attack on the ballot box was a scalpel, his attack on public transit is a sledgehammer. Wostal has been the leading voice in the push to essentially liquidate the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) authority. At minimum, he wants to turn it into a “Tampa-only” service.²

He wants to cut HARTflex South County service and 24LX/25LX express routes. This would strand essential workers in South County. To Wostal, 15 riders on a bus are just an “inefficiency.” But he is not saving much. HART’s budget is small compared to the sprawl subsidies he supports. He harms the grandmother who cannot see her doctor. He harms the dishwasher who cannot get to MacDill. This is why his record is a “Moral Abomination”: he would rather let a worker lose their job than fund a service he does not use.

To the “Influencer Commissioner,” a bus route in South County is just an “inefficiency” to be eliminated. But to the working mom in Riverview or the dishwasher commuting to MacDill, that route is the difference between a paycheck and a pink slip. Wostal’s crusade against HART isn’t about the “fiscal cliff,” which analysts have noted was far less dire than his rhetoric suggested; it’s about Cruelty as Governance.³ He is willing to strand thousands of residents to satisfy an ideological fantasy of a car-dependent utopia that benefits only the developers who fund the “sprawl subsidies” he calls infrastructure.

The Infrastructure Mirage

Wostal’s “Fix Our Crumbling Infrastructure” platform is perhaps his most cynical performance.⁴ He has pushed to divert Community Investment Tax (CIT) funds away from “pet projects,” a term he uses to disparage things like public schools and community facilities, to fast-track specific road widenings like Lithia Pinecrest and Van Dyke Road.

While he claims this is for “the commuters,” follow the pavement. These projects are the lifeblood of new, high-density developments. Wostal is effectively using public tax dollars to build the private driveways of the donor class while the existing roads in North and East Hillsborough remain a patchwork of neglect. It’s the ultimate bait-and-switch: he tells you he’s fixing your commute while he’s actually paving the way for the next developer’s windfall.

The Small Business Myth vs. The Asset Stripper

Wostal loves to remind us he’s a “small businessman,” yet he governs like a corporate raider. He looks at a county of 1.5 million people and sees only assets to be stripped and services to be sold. Whether it’s his attempt to raid “catastrophic reserves” for his preferred projects or his performative outrage over stadium funding, where he suddenly plays the “defender of the taxpayer” while simultaneously cutting the legs out from under the Supervisor of Elections, the inconsistency is the point.

He is not a fiscal hawk. He is a political vulture. He picks the bones of public services to feed the appetites of a partisan base that prefers “owning the libs” to a working transit system.

The Choice for Hillsborough

Josh Wostal knows the price of every bus route, but not the value of the riders. He is not a fiscal hawk. He is a political vulture who hurts public services to please donors.

As Aileen Rodriguez takes the stage, the contrast couldn’t be clearer. Hillsborough County does not need a Commissioner who sees our neighbors as “ghosts” or transit riders as “burdens.” We need something I call “Fierce Kindness.” Governance means seeing that a road matters because of the community it links, and a budget is only as moral as the people it protects.

Josh Wostal has shown us who he is. He is the man who would leave a worker stranded in the South County heat to save a penny, then brag about it online. We should stop paying attention to the act and see the damage he leaves.

Hillsborough needs a public servant, not an influencer. 

1. WUSF, “The Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections faces a $200,000 budget cut,” March 2024 ↩

2. National Federation of the Blind, Resolution 2025-05 ↩

3. WUSF, “HART will not face a fiscal cliff this year,” July 2024. ↩

4. JoshuaWostal.com, “Infrastructure” ↩

But the Stoics did not intend for the work to stop there.

The key takeaway is that a well-lived life reaches beyond oneself and into relationships, community, and responsibility for others. Stoicism is not just about calmness; its aim is to foster justice in people.

Few Stoics expressed this outward movement more clearly than Hierocles.

We know little about Hierocles himself. He was a Stoic philosopher from the second century. Like many Stoics outside the central figures, most of his work survives only in fragments. What remains endures not because of its volume, but because of its clarity.

From those fragments, one image stands out. Hierocles described human life as a series of concentric circles. At the center is the self. Next is the immediate family. Then come extended family, neighbors, fellow citizens, and finally the whole of humanity. Each circle represents a widening sphere of connection and responsibility.

Yet Hierocles offered more than just a way to picture these circles. It was to challenge us to move them. “The task of a well-ordered person is to draw the circles somehow toward the center.” In practical terms, this means narrowing the gap between ourselves and others and practicing connection and empathy beyond instinctual boundaries.

That is the work.

Hierocles did not ask us to pretend that all relationships are the same. He was not erasing the importance of family or the natural bonds that come with it. His argument was more disciplined than that.

He asked us to reduce the distance.

Treat those who are further away as if they were closer than we instinctively allow. Speak and act in ways that reflect shared humanity, not convenient separation. In another fragment, he suggests that we should address cousins as brothers, neighbors as fellow citizens, and strangers as part of our extended human family. This was not poetic language. It was moral training.

The circles are not about sentiment. They are about responsibility. The lesson: moving circles inward reflects our obligation to care for more than just ourselves.

This idea rests on a central Stoic belief: humans are, by nature, social creatures. Our capacity for reason is not meant to isolate us. It is meant to connect us more deeply and responsibly to others. To live in accordance with nature is not only self-governance. It also means recognizing our place within a larger human community.

That recognition carries obligations. Not abstract ones, but practical ones. It is one thing to understand that in theory. It is another to live it.

The closest circle, of course, is family. There are moments when that circle demands everything. Sitting with a loved one as life draws to a close. Supporting those who are grieving. Being present in ways that cannot be delegated or postponed. There is no philosophy to debate in those moments. Only the quiet, steady work of being there.

Still, the circles extend outward.

Beyond that inner circle are the relationships that form over time. Friends show up when they are needed. People listen, remember, and stand with us without trying to fix the unfixable. These relationships show that the circle is not only something we extend outward. It is also something that holds us as well.

As the circle expands, our perspective shifts again. This is where Hierocles’ teaching becomes more challenging. The connections are less immediate. The responsibilities are less obvious. It is here that intention matters most.

In my own life, this takes many shapes, both public and quiet. I have organized community forums on issues like housing affordability and public education. I have helped create citizen engagement training to help others step into these conversations. Some work involves gathering people and amplifying unheard voices. Other work is just helping people find their footing so they can speak for themselves.

None of that feels philosophical in the moment. It feels like work that needs to be done.

There are quieter forms of the same effort. I, along with many others, volunteer for late-night shifts at a cold-weather shelter. I sit with people who need to know they are seen. I listen without trying to fix everything. I look for small ways to leave others with more dignity than they had before our conversation.

These moments do not draw attention. But they are not small. They are exactly the kind of movement Hierocles had in mind.

His circles are not meant to be admired. They are meant to be practiced. Not all at once, and not perfectly, but intentionally. Each time we give more attention, patience, or care than we might have, we help the circle move; the distance narrows, the abstract becomes personal, and change happens.

There is a limit to what any one of us can carry. There are too many needs. The problems are too large. It is easy to look at the widening circles and feel too small to matter. But that is not the conclusion Hierocles invites.

The work is not to carry the entire circle. It is to move it.

There is a line I have carried with me for some time now from songwriter Jana Stanfield:

The circles remain. But they do not have to remain as wide as they are.

It’s easy to have good thoughts for a little while. You read something that clicks, maybe underline a line, and nod along. It feels like you’re making progress, like you really get it. But truly understanding something isn’t the same as living it.

Later, in a quieter moment, once the reading has ended and the day resumes, the real test emerges. It might be a small choice, a fleeting reaction, or a nagging habit. Suddenly, your actions no longer align with your stated beliefs.

That’s when you find out if your philosophy really sticks.

The Stoics understood this tension, but few addressed it as directly as Musonius Rufus. He was not an emperor like Marcus Aurelius, or a statesman like Seneca. He did not leave behind polished essays or private journals filled with introspection. What we have are fragments of his teaching, recorded by students, often in the form of simple arguments about how a person should live.

What stands out immediately is how practical it is.

Musonius was less interested in what you believed about virtue and more interested in whether your life reflected it. He spoke about food, clothing, work, and relationships. The ordinary parts of life that most philosophies tend to treat as secondary. For him, they were not secondary at all. They were the test.

“If you accomplish something good with hard work, the labor passes quickly, but the good endures. If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures.”

There’s nothing abstract here. No complicated system, no theories to argue about. It’s just a clear point about cause and effect, said in a way that leaves very little room for interpretation.

That’s what sets Musonius apart. He doesn’t just ask you to think. He wants your actions to match your beliefs.

And that is where I start to feel the tension.

It’s one thing to write about discipline, but it’s another to actually live it every day, especially in the small moments no one notices. Those choices and habits that never get mentioned are where convenience often wins.

In those moments, his voice lands a little heavier.

Alongside this journey through Stoicism, I have been on a parallel path toward improving my health. Over the past 30 months, I have been working through a weight-loss and fitness program that has resulted in losing more than 200 pounds. The changes have been significant enough that my primary care provider and I are now discussing tapering off medications for blood pressure and pre-diabetes in the coming months.

That progress didn’t come from anything fancy. It’s just daily walks, slowly adding some light strength training, and sticking with changes to how I eat and move. Over time, these habits have started to feel less like hard work and more like part of my routine.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The challenges rarely come from fatigue or a lack of willingness. More often, they come from somewhere else entirely. A frustration with a situation that has nothing to do with my health. A plan that does not come together the way it should. Someone not following through when I was relying on it, or changing something without notice.

Those are the moments that throw me off.

The frustration builds, and before long, it spills over into places it does not belong. I find myself resisting the very routines that have been helping me. Not because they have changed, but because my state of mind has. There is even a strange sense of resentment that creeps in, as if the discipline itself has become part of the problem.

When I look at it clearly, it doesn’t make much sense. But in the moment, it feels real. That’s where the work is. Not in knowing what to do, but in coming back to it anyway.

Some days, sticking to my routine is the only thing that helps. Even when I’m not motivated, I go for the walk. Sometimes I take another walk just to clear my head. Moving helps me calm down, see things more clearly, and respond thoughtfully rather than just react.

It’s not dramatic. It is not philosophical.

But it is practice.

This is the kind of life Musonius Rufus had in mind. He believed philosophy should shape life in tangible ways: what you eat, how you train your body, how you respond to discomfort, and how you match your actions to your values. These were central, not side topics.

In one of his talks, he says that physical discipline isn’t separate from philosophy, but part of it. Not because being strong or tough is the goal, but because it helps you build the resilience you need to live well. If you always avoid discomfort, it’s hard to stay consistent when it counts.

That is not an abstract idea. You feel it on days when frustration makes it easier to give up than to stick with your habits.

There is something almost disarming about how direct Musonius Rufus can be. He does not ask for reflection so much as for consistency. If you believe something is good, then do it. If you believe something is harmful, then stop. Do not admire the idea of discipline. Practice it. Do not talk about simplicity. Live it.

It sounds obvious. But it’s not.

The hard part isn’t knowing what matters. It’s bringing that understanding into the small, everyday moments where it’s easy to let it go. When frustration distracts you, when something unexpected throws you off, or when it just seems easier to skip your discipline for a day and promise to return later.

Those are the moments that define it.

Musonius believed philosophy should show up in how you live—not just in what you say, but in what you do over and over: how you eat, work, handle discomfort, and act when things don’t go your way.

Not perfectly. But consistently.

I keep coming back to this:

And maybe that is enough. Not to get it right once and be done, but to keep coming back to it. To keep closing the gap between what I believe and how I live, as many times as it takes. To see those ordinary moments not as interruptions, but as the real place where the work actually happens.

Most of the time, no one sees that part.

We tend to think of philosophy as something written for others, carefully structured ideas, refined and presented for an audience, perhaps people like us, searching for answers. But Marcus Aurelius wasn’t doing that. He wasn’t writing for readers, nor was he trying to teach. In fact, he never intended anyone to read what he wrote. What we now call Meditations was something else entirely. It was a private conversation, not unlike the ones you might have with yourself.

Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world. He was emperor of Rome, commander of armies, and responsible for the stability of an empire that stretched across continents. His decisions affected millions of people, most of whom he would never meet. And yet, when you read his writing, none of that is what stands out. What you see instead is a man trying to manage himself.

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

That line is often quoted now, usually as advice. But in its original context, it wasn’t instruction. It was a reminder…a note to himself. And in that way, it’s something you or I might write, too. Because even as emperor, he struggled with the same things anyone else does: frustration, fatigue, irritation with other people, the pull of ego, the temptation to take things personally. He opens one passage with a warning that feels almost disarmingly direct: “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.” It doesn’t read like philosophy. It reads like someone preparing himself for the day ahead. Much like we do.

Marcus Aurelius did not come to philosophy in quiet conditions. His reign was marked by war, plague, and instability. Much of his time as emperor was spent on the front lines, leading campaigns along the Danube River. The Antonine Plague swept through Rome during his rule, killing millions and straining every part of the empire. This was not a life that allowed for retreat into calm reflection. Decisions had to be made, pressure sustained, and responsibility carried forward, whether he felt ready or not.

There is a tendency to imagine that wisdom comes more easily in those conditions, that pressure produces clarity. But Marcus’ writing suggests something different. It made it harder.

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions,—not outside.”

That’s not the voice of someone above the struggle. That’s someone in it, trying to regain footing.

What stands out in Meditations is not brilliance. It’s repetition. The same ideas appear again and again, slightly reworded, reframed, restated. You will die. This is fleeting. This is not worth your anger. Focus on what is yours to do. At first, it can feel redundant. But over time, it becomes clear why. He wasn’t writing to discover these ideas. He was writing because he kept forgetting them.

That’s the part that feels uncomfortably familiar. We don’t struggle because we lack insight. Most of us already know what would steady us. We know not to overreact. We know not to take every slight personally. We know what matters and what doesn’t. And still, we lose perspective, not once, but repeatedly. Maybe you recognize how often this happens in your own life. The problem isn’t ignorance. It’s drift.

Like some of you, I know that drift well. The more difficult life becomes—when it pulls away from what is familiar and comfortable—the easier it is to lose sight of these principles. The things I know, the things I’ve written about, the things I believe don’t disappear, but they get buried. Worry moves in quickly. I become harsher, with myself and with others. Small things take on more weight than they should, and my reactions come faster, with less thought behind them. It doesn’t feel philosophical in those moments. It feels human.

Marcus understood that. So he built a practice around returning— not once, not when convenient, but as often as necessary. There are moments when the only thing to do is stop and recalibrate, choose your response again, separate what belongs to you from what does not, and let the rest fall away. 

Again, often quoted as philosophy, but in context, it reads more like instruction under pressure. This is how you meet difficulty. This is how you reframe it. This is how you keep going. There is no sense in Meditations that he believed he had mastered this. If anything, the opposite. The writing carries the tone of someone who knows how easily things can slip, how quickly irritation can take hold, and how quickly the mind can turn outward, blaming circumstance rather than correcting itself. And so he keeps returning to the same questions: What is in my control? What is not? What is required of me right now?

That is the discipline. Not perfection, not detachment from life, not becoming unbothered by everything, but the steady practice of seeing clearly, correcting quickly, and returning again and again to what matters.

You don’t need to be an emperor to need this. You just need a Tuesday.

A day where things don’t go as planned, where someone says something that lands wrong, where your patience runs thinner than you expected, and your mind starts to spiral just a little. That’s where this matters. Not in the rare, defining moments, but in the accumulation of ordinary ones. The quiet choices about how you respond, what you hold onto, and what you let pass without adding to it.

Marcus wasn’t preparing for greatness in those pages. He was preparing for the day ahead. He didn’t expect himself to get it right once and be done. He expected to forget, to drift, to react poorly—and then to return.

Again and again.

“The cucumber is bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in the path? Turn aside. That is enough.”

It’s a simple line, almost dismissive, but it carries a quiet discipline. Not everything needs to be wrestled with. Not everything needs a reaction. Some things are better met with a small adjustment and a decision to move on.

Most days won’t ask much more of us than that. To notice when we’ve drifted. To interrupt the spiral. To take back control of what is ours and release what isn’t. To do the next right thing without making it heavier than it needs to be.

Meditations was never meant for you.

Because what Marcus was doing, correcting himself, reminding himself, trying again, shows us that greatness isn’t about never faltering; it’s the courage and discipline to return, to begin again, and to move forward with humility, no matter how often we forget. That is why his voice still reaches us across centuries.

That isn’t something reserved for emperors or philosophers. It’s something available to anyone, including you, if you’re willing to pause, pay attention, and begin again.

When that moment comes…and it will…remember, you don’t need anything complicated. Just pause. Take a breath, even if it’s a short one. Ask yourself, quietly, what here is actually within my control? Let the rest fall back where it belongs. Then choose the next right action, however small, and move forward without carrying everything else with you. It won’t feel perfect. It doesn’t need to. The point is not to get it right once, but to return to it again when you forget.