Systems Over Motivation

We are living in a cult of "feeling like it." We’ve been told that before we can

do anything great, we first need to be inspired. We wait for that spark,

that surge of energy, that perfect emotional state that will finally propel us toward our goals.

But the Stoics—men who led empires and faced death with a smile—would have found this

obsession with motivation pathetic. To Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, motivation was nothing

more than a flickering candle in a hurricane. It is unreliable, untrustworthy, and ultimately,

a form of emotional slavery. Today, we are exploring why the Stoics didn’t

care about motivation, and why they built their lives on systems instead of feelings. Think about how