It’s weird how much you don’t remember, even of your own life. 

Even things that happened not that long ago can come back to you as total surprises. 

I opened an old worn copy of my One Line a Day journal this morning and was flipping through dates. 

On June 14th, 2017, I had lunch in Oklahoma City with a guy named Mark Daigneault, an up and coming coach in the G-League of the NBA…and now he’s the head coach and defending NBA champion of the Oklahoma City Thunder. On Dec 7th, 2017, we woke up to four inches of snow on our ranch. On October 19th, 2019 I had to kill a rattlesnake near the garage. A couple months later, I was walking my boys down our road when two loose pit bulls attacked us. I frantically searched around for anything to fight them off with before miraculously, mysteriously they ran back in the direction they had come from. 

July 2nd, 2018 was the day I wrote the first words of Stillness is the Key. July 2nd, 2017 is the day my oldest son crawled for the first time. In the fall of 2019, I kept popping in to “look at that building” which would become The Painted Porch over a year later. 

On a very disappointing day in February 2023, I discovered that an employee I had just promoted was actually stealing from us—and the next day, had a very emotionally difficult confrontation with them about it.

March 30th, 2025: I took my son to see Hamilton, and then we got sushi after. March 17th, 2022: We drove six hours to Balmorhea to swim in one of the most amazing spring-fed pools in the world. March 12th, 2020: My wife and I called and woke up her parents who were in Europe and told them we really, really thought they needed to come home because this pandemic thing was real. The next day, my son was home and the lockdowns began. 

In late April 2019, I had a call with an accountant we were using and I lost my temper and yelled and fired him in a way I regretted even in the moment. On Christmas evening in both 2024 and 2025, we went to the same Waffle House in Florida near the airport.

To catch a tight morning flight out of JFK in June of 2024, I got to fly in a helicopter to the airport…and then the next day I woke up with COVID. Over a four-day stretch in September 2023, my kids and I got our ATV stuck in the mud on our ranch, then I flew to LA to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger… before driving to Ojai for a talk the next morning…before flying so I could be home with the kids for twenty hours before flying back to LA to do a talk with Robert Greene to a sold out crowd at the historic Wilshire Ebell Theatre. 

I remember some of these things better than others. I know what happened because I wrote it all down. 

I’m sure there’s “better” stuff tucked away in the some 3,300 days I’ve filled out so far, and if I was writing a memoir or something, maybe I would take the time to find those keystone days. That’s not really the point. What strikes me most about what I see when I flip through it is the ordinary wonderful days, the little moments and memories, the rhythms of life on a ranch, as a writer, as a parent. 

I see the person I was. I see the person I am becoming. I see the person I want to be again. I see mistakes I don’t want to make anymore. 

I don’t remember exactly how, when, or where I first heard about the One Line a Day journal, but it’s changed my life. Although I’ve been journaling off and on for longer, I’ve been using one of these One Line a Day Journals for nine years now, going on ten. It’s something I’ve done every single day. Sometimes in the morning, but usually at night before bed. I take a few minutes and I write down something that feels like it defines the day I just had—something I wanted to remember about the day.

I’ve taken it pretty much everywhere in the U.S., and all over the world (Europe, Australia, South America at least). The pages are structured so you write just one line for each day, and the years stack on top of each other. January 14th, 2017 sits above January 14th, 2018, which sits above 2019, 2020, 2021, and so on. So you can see what you wrote on the same date one, two, five years ago. 

In these pages, I can see multiple drives across the country. I can see the patterns of catching colds and overworking. I can see the rhythms of the retail and the speaking businesses. I can see the ups and downs of nearly half my marriage. I can see the entirety of COVID. I can see political trends. I can chart books I conceived, wrote, published and promoted. I can see my kids growing up.

Some of it I vaguely remember. Most of it I had completely forgotten (On August 28th 2019, I apparently had dinner at a table with Condoleezza Rice and Paul Ryan. What?! What did we talk about? I don’t remember.) And without these pages, it would all be gone. 

From these jottings, I can piece things back together. I can travel back in time. I can marvel at the absurdities. I can be grateful. I can try to remember how easy it is to get lost in the day-to-dayness of your own existence while you’re in it. 

One line. One sentence. What did I think about today? Where did I go? What happened? How am I doing?

That’s it.

It sounds like nothing. And in a way, it is nothing—but those words accumulate. And after years of entries, you have something priceless: a record of who you’ve been, what you’ve done, how you’ve gotten to where you are.

When Joan Didion was five years old, her mother gave her a small notebook, to keep her busy, and it did—for the rest of her life. Of course, she used those notebooks as a writer and screenwriter, but Didion was reluctant to reduce her notebooks to just a professional tool. In a famous essay called “On Keeping a Notebook,” she flips through scraps of dialogue she had put down at a train station in Delaware, or recollections of childhood experiences, or facts about pollution in New York City. She wonders why she had bothered to write it all down. Who was this person who had felt the need to record so many seemingly banal things?

Then she realized, that was the point. “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be,” she writes. “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.” Capturing little thoughts and moments—however seemingly mundane or insignificant—in the pages of her notebook was, she wrote, a way of keeping in touch with herself, a way of remembering “what it was to be me.”

A journal is a means of taking a picture, both of what you see in a moment…and the person seeing it.

Perhaps there is no area of life where such a practice is more helpful and important than parenting. Because you’re so busy and so much is happening and you can so easily forget to remember who you and they were day to day. (That’s what I built The Daily Dad Journal around. One question every day for five years.)

When I flip back through my journals, the person who wrote those entries a year ago, five years ago, nine years ago feels like a stranger in some ways. His concerns were different. His kids were smaller. His life was calmer. It was also crazier. But he’s also recognizably me. I can see the threads that connect us, the patterns that persist, the things that mattered then and still matter now. All the selves I have been on the way to becoming who I am today.

The biggest regret that comes through? Besides wishing that I slowed down a little and was present more…is that I wish I had started the journal earlier and could go back even further. 

It’s a gift to be able to check in with all those past versions of me. To stay on nodding terms with them. To remember what it was to be them.

A gift that costs almost nothing.

Just one line a day.

***

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A lot happened in 2025. I don’t just mean in the world, although obviously it did. I mean in my life. 

But I think that, years from now, I probably won’t remember most of it. 

The news stories will recede into the background. I’ll forget exactly if this was the year that I put a book out or where it landed on the bestseller list. 

All those things—the concerns, the anxieties, the thrills, the benchmarks—will blur together the way they do every other year. What do I really remember about 2015 or 2022? 

On the Daily Stoic podcast, Jesse Itzler told me about this concept of the Misogi. Borrowed from an ancient Japanese purification ritual, the modern Misogi is about committing to one epic, year-defining challenge—something so significant, so hard, so memorable, that decades later, when you think back, you’ll instantly remember: that was the year I ___________________.

When I look back on 2025, I’m going to think, that was the year I ran the original marathon in Greece. By myself. In the middle of July. 

I’ll remember the training, running in as many different environments and conditions as possible to prepare for the heat, hills, and distance I’d face in Greece. The long runs up switchbacks in Palm Springs, along California’s Santa Ana River, on mountain trails in Utah (where I was warned to look out for a very protective mother moose and her two calves), around Lady Bird Lake in Austin, and through the eerie elephant graveyard of the burned-out forest of Bastrop State Park. I’ll remember running in 105-degree heat. Running on steep inclines. Running before dawn, at altitude, on cement, gravel, and sand. I’ll remember training at the Acropolis, in Ithaca, and up Mount Olympus.

And, of course, I’ll remember everything about July 13, 2025. Standing at the starting point of the original Marathon route at 6:51 a.m. Being the only one out there running the course. Running on sidewalks, shoulders of busy roads, past shopping centers and autobody shops, alongside freeways, and through underpasses. 

I’ll remember, three and a half miles in, passing a giant mound surrounded by trees—the burial mound of the 192 Athenians who died at Marathon, to whom we owe basically all of Western civilization. 

Mostly what I’ll remember though is that I set out to do a hard thing and then I did it. I’ll forever remember that when I ran into a complete wall—both my mind and body begging to quit—I held on, I didn’t quit, I gutted it out, I finished. (Videos here and here about the full experience of training for and running the original marathon and what it taught me).

As we’ve said before, doing hard things is good for you. Challenging yourself is good for you. Because life is hard and life is challenging. 

Among other Misogi challenges, Jesse has run 100-mile races, completed Ultramans, biked across America, and hiked 44 miles rim-to-rim-to-rim across the Grand Canyon. I actually don’t think the challenge needs to be physical. Quitting drinking might be what you remember about 2012. Or reading the Robert Caro series on Lyndon Johnson is a pretty good Misogi. Learning a language or repairing a relationship could be a hard thing that defines your year. 

I’ll give a minor one that already stands out to me from 2025: One of the early challenges of the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge was to quit a bad habit. I found that I was checking/using Reddit too much. It wasn’t good for my productivity. It wasn’t good for my mental health. So I decided I would quit for the New Year. It took some habit reformation, but I did it. And it sort of snuck up on me yesterday that I hadn’t used the site in a year! 

Considering that I remember vividly that December 2011 was the year I quit drinking soda, I’m guessing this will be another date that sticks with me. In fact, I was just proudly telling my kids about this the other day, that I had made a decision fifteen years ago to stop something and I had held to it ever since. I was telling them that it taught me that I was in charge of my habits and not the other way around and that even if there weren’t any health benefits to cutting that out of my diet, just learning how to do it would have been valuable enough. 

I love this idea of the Misogi because it’s about taking control of your life and the experiences that will, in the end, define it. It’s about being able to one day look back and remember all that you did, rather than all that was done to you.

This is really the idea with the New Year, New You Challenge. Some of the challenges are physical. Some are mental. Some spur you to investigate and overcome internal adversities, others have you take on external ones. Some of the challenges are completed in a single day and others over the course of the year. But in each and every case, the challenges present an opportunity to prove who is in charge. To do the harder thing. To take on the challenge. To not follow the drift of least resistance. To get in the habit of choosing the more difficult option.

Seneca talked about how the only people he pitied were those who hadn’t been through adversity or experienced difficulty. “You have passed through life without an opponent,” he said. “No one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

It’s important that you do hard things. That you seek out challenges and opponents. That every year—starting with 2026—you do something really, really hard.

Something year-defining.

Something you’ll be proud of.

Something you’ll remember.

Something that will make your life better.

Something that will make YOU better.

That’s what Stoicism is—physical and mental challenges we subject ourselves to so that when life tests us, we can say as Epictetus said we need to be able to say: “This is what I trained for.” 

This is why every year since 2018, I’ve started the year with The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It’s 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges, weekly live calls with me, and a private community of people—CEOs, writers, artists, parents, professors, students, founders, athletes—from around the world, all doing hard things together.

Today is the LAST DAY to sign up to join us in the 2026 Challenge.

We create a new challenge every year and to meet the unique demands of 2026, this year’s challenge is 21 days of challenges built on the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. It’s over 20,000 words of exclusive content that I don’t post anywhere else. Get all the details here—would love to have you join us.

The 2026 Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge starts TOMORROW. Learn more and sign up NOW at dailystoic.com/challenge!

Today is quiet and calm.

It’s lovely and peaceful. 

But when we think about the year ahead, many of us are nervous. We are clinching, as if for a fight, tensing as if we know that a rollercoaster is about to start. 

There is of course the political dysfunction and division that could spiral out of control at any moment. There is the looming, incredible potentially disruptive power of AI sitting before us…as well as the vertigo of a market just a few companies have driven higher and higher. 

There are warning signs. There are unknowns. 

We could keep walking through raindrops…or the music could stop. 

We don’t know what is going to happen in 2026, but we can be pretty sure that something is. 

Will 2026 be like Seneca’s year 26, a turbulent year of exile, illness, financial setbacks, and all sorts of other brutal reminders of, as he wrote, “fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases”? Will it be like Marcus Aurelius’s year 126, filled with chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty? 

Again, we don’t know. 

So what should we be thinking about? What should we do? 

The Stoics say that we should think about our “chief task” in life: to identify and separate matters into what’s under our control and what isn’t. Making this distinction—then choosing to focus on what’s in your control—will make you happier, stronger, and more successful. If only because it concentrates your resources in the places where they matter.

While many people this time of year think about making resolutions about things that are only partially in their control—getting promoted, reducing stress, making more money, finding a partner—I’m focusing on these 13 things that are fully up to me…

Watching my information diet. When I’m not feeling great physically—tired, irritable, sluggish—usually it’s because I’m eating poorly. In the same way, when I feel mentally scattered and distracted—I know it’s time to focus on cleaning up my information diet. “Read not the Times,” Thoreau wrote. “Read the Eternities.” Read old books. Read philosophy. Read history. Read biographies. Study psychology. Study the patterns of history. Read ​​The Great Influenza​​ to be informed about pandemics. Read ​​All The King’s Men​​ and ​​It Can’t Happen Here ​to be informed about the demagogues of this moment. Read ​The Moviegoer​ to understand your listless teenager. Read ​The Years of Lyndon Johnson​ to study power and ambition. ​Read the Stoics​. Read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book on the market crash of 1929. Read Morgan Housel’s great book of anecdotes and musings on the constants of human nature and history. Read Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger’s wonderful book about not only enduring unimaginable suffering but finding meaning in it. And definitely, definitely, definitely, read ​Zweig’s biography of Montaigne​ (​which I talk about here​).

Challenging myself. “We treat the body rigorously,” Seneca said, “so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.” We toughen ourselves up because life is tough. That’s what Stoicism is—physical and mental challenges we subject ourselves to so that, no matter what life has in store for us, we’ll be able to say as Epictetus said we need to be able to say: “This is what I trained for.” This is why I’m a big believer in having a physical practice. It’s why I take cold showers even though I hate them. And it’s why every year since 2018, I’ve started the year with The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It’s 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges, weekly live calls with me, a private challenge community, and the chance to do hard things alongside people—CEOs, writers, artists, parents, professors, students, founders, athletes—from around the world. (Only a week left to sign up to join us in the 2026 Challenge—get all the details here). In any case, we must challenge ourselves, we must treat ourselves rigorously, so that whatever happens in 2026 and beyond, we can say, “this is what I trained for.”

Making a positive contribution every day. For a long time, my writing habit was all-or-nothing—either I wrote a lot of words or I didn’t. Over time, I’ve lowered the stakes: now the question is simply, “Did I make a positive contribution to my writing today?” Sometimes that means writing, sometimes editing, adding, deleting. Sometimes I’m home and it’s in my office, sometimes I’m on the road and it’s on a plane or in a hotel room. Sometimes it’s a big contribution, sometimes it’s a little contribution. In ​Discipline Is Destiny​, I write about the practice of Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Always finding some way to make a little progress. Focusing on the joys of getting a little bit better every day. 

Doing what only I can do. Something that’s happened with Daily Stoic over the years is as it has grown, so has the number of copycats. And so we’re constantly asking, what can only we do? What can only we write? What can only we create? With the bookstore, for example, we’re lucky to have authors constantly passing through to record the podcast. While they’re here, they sign books. Sometimes we do live events with them. Those books, those experiences—you can’t get them anywhere else. This has always been good advice, but with these AI tools making it easier and easier to copy and replicate and reproduce, it’s more important than ever to find and focus on the things only you can do. There’s a lot a lot of people can do, but there’s some stuff—particularly where you live, with your family, with your skills etc–that only you can do. Do that. 

Competing only with myself. Epictetus quipped that, “You can always win if you only enter competitions where winning is up to you.” The bestseller list? That’s up to the New York Times. Winning a Grammy? That’s up for the Recording Academy. A Nobel Prize? That’s up to the folks in Stockholm. Even competitive goals like being the fastest person in a race or the richest person in the world—these depend on what your competitors do. What is in my control is showing up, giving maximum effort, following my process, sticking to my principles, pursuing what lights me up. Could I write about something with more mass than an obscure school of ancient philosophy and sell more books? Could I get into crypto and make more money? Could I do what other podcasters do—platform anyone, no matter how ridiculous or toxic, just because controversy drives downloads—and get more attention? Maybe. But philosophy is what I find endlessly fascinating, crypto is something I know nothing about, and getting attention is not my goal. So I’m tuning those things out and focusing on what I can do, what I know, what gets me excited, and what I value. If that translates to on the field success, great—in fact, it almost always does. If that translates into career recognition, awesome—and again, it usually does.

Discarding anxiety. Some people are anxious about politics. Others about flying. Others about their kids. The one thing all causes of anxiety have in common? US! The airport is not making you anxious. You are making yourself anxious in the airport! Marcus Aurelius talks about this in ​Meditations​. “Today I escaped from anxiety,” he says. “Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.” It’s a little frustrating, but it’s also freeing. Because it means you can stop it! You can choose to discard it.

Raising my kids well. One of my favorite things to do each day is sit down and write the ​Daily Dad email​. It’s one piece of wisdom—drawn from history, science, literature, and other ordinary parents—that goes out to about 100,000 parents around the world (sign up here). But really, I’m writing it for myself. I’m reading, researching, and collecting the best ideas because I want to be a better parent. I want to be more patient. I want to set a good example. I want to give my kids the wisdom and resilience they’ll need to navigate the world. Raising kids is the most important thing I’ll ever do. So I study it the way I study philosophy, history, or business—because I want to do it well. If you want to have a multi-generational impact, if you want to make the future better—raise your kids right.

Using my platform to support what I think is important. I have a platform, and I want to use it well. That means amplifying ideas, voices, and causes that matter—not just whatever gets the most clicks or makes the most money. Every year over at Daily Stoic, we skip the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales—huge revenue opportunities—and run a fundraiser for Feeding America instead. This year we surpassed our $300,000 goal, providing well over 3 million meals for families across the country! Epictetus talked about how every situation has two handles. I could pick up 2025 by the handle of everything that went wrong, everything I didn’t like, everything that disappointed me. Or I can pick it up by the handle of what we accomplished, the money we raised, the people we helped, the good we did. I’m choosing to focus on the second handle.

Thinking long term. One of the things you get when you “read the eternities” as Thoreau said, is a longer term perspective. Do you know how long the Antonine Plague lasted? 15 years. Ok, what about the “Decline and Fall of Rome” which some people think America is in the middle of right now? Some 300 years! We need to zoom out. We need, like that famous Zen story, to “wait and see.” And we need, as Jeff Bezos likes to say, to “focus on the things that don’t change.” A lot of people will spend 2026 fixated on trends, fads, and momentary crises. I’m focusing on what will still matter in five, ten, fifty years. Character. Discipline. Patience. Wisdom. Hard work. These are constants—no matter who’s in office, no matter what’s happening in the headlines. The world will always be chaotic. There will always be noise. The only way to stay grounded is to focus on what actually matters in the long run.

Treating people well. I don’t control the cruelty in the world. I don’t control how others act, how unfair or thoughtless or selfish they can be. But I do control how I run my team. How I show up for my family. How I treat strangers. The world will always have its share of rudeness, dishonesty, and indifference. That doesn’t mean I have to contribute to it. Kindness, patience, fairness—these are always within my control.

Having fewer opinions. It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. Do you need to have an opinion about the scandal of the moment—is it changing anything? Do you need to have an opinion about the way your kid does their hair? So what if that person is a vegetarian? “These things are not asking to be judged by you,” ​​Marcus writes​​. “Leave them alone.” Especially because these opinions often make us miserable! “It’s not things that upset us,” Epictetus says, “it’s our opinions about things.” The fewer opinions you have, especially about other people and things outside your control, the happier you will be.  Of course, this is not to say that we shouldn’t have any opinions at all, but that we should save our judgments for what matters—right and wrong, justice and injustice, what is moral and what is not. If we spend our energy forming opinions about every trivial annoyance, we’ll have none left for the things that actually matter.

Contributing to my community. America’s communities have been hollowed out. Big box stores replaced small businesses. Digital replaced physical. So much of modern success is subtractive—extracting, optimizing, squeezing more for less. I’m trying to do the opposite. In 2021, my wife and I bought ​Tracy’s Drive-In Grocery​, a little place that’s been in business in our small, rural town since 1940. We also opened ​The Painted Porch​, a small-town bookstore down the street. Neither of these are the most rational business decisions—it’s risky, expensive, and deeply local. But what’s the point of success if you only spend it trying to be more successful? We like these things because they matter. Because they are real.

Not letting the sonsofbitches turn me into a sonuvabitch. This might be the hardest task in the world right now—to not let assholes turn you into an asshole. To not let cruelty harden you, to not let stupidity make you bitter, to not let outrage pull you down to its level. “The best revenge,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in ​Meditations​, “is to not be like that.” I am disappointed by some of the things people I know are saying and doing; I am more focused on making sure I don’t follow suit.

As I said, I start each year by doing ​The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge​. There’s only A WEEK LEFT to sign up to join me in the 2026 Challenge.

We create a new one every year and to meet the unique demands of 2026, this year’s challenge is 21 days of challenges—presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy—designed to set up life-changing habits for 2026 and beyond. It’s over 20,000 words of exclusive content that I don’t post anywhere else, weekly live Q&A Zoom calls, a private challenge community for accountability, and a lot more. 

It’s one of my favorite things I do each year, and I really enjoy interacting with everyone in the challenge. Would love to have you join us—click here to learn more.

The 2026 Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge starts January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge!