A Simple Stoic Evening Meditation

To Complete Your Day The Right Way

Good evening, fellow Stoic.

Let’s embrace a slower pace as we prepare to retire to bed.

Let’s use this mental space to reflect on our day.

In our daily practice of Stoicism, we seek to become better.

The better we become, the more we feel the benefits that the ancient Stoics spoke of — peace of mind, resilience, courage, wisdom.

To ensure we’re on track with our philosophical goals, and to ensure our practice is paying off, we need to review our progress each day. Otherwise, how can we know?

Remember how Epictetus stressed the importance of this exercise (Discourses 3.10):

“Admit not sleep into your tender eyelids

Till you have reckoned up each deed of the day —

How have I erred, what done or left undone?

So start, and so review your acts, and then

For vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad.”

When reviewing your day, it’s important to remember: the goal is never to beat yourself up for the mistakes you made.

It is simply to create an awareness of those mistakes and to commit to not making them again.

So, when examining your mistakes at the end of each day, be strict with yourself, but don’t forget to also be kind.

Use Seneca’s mantra when necessary:

“See that you don’t do it again, but for now I forgive you.”

But first, let’s begin our review by noting what we did well today.

It’s OK to feel proud of yourself for even the smallest step forward. That’s how all journeys begin, after all.

“Don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic,” wrote Marcus Aurelius. “Be satisfied with even the smallest progress.”