They Give You Direction for Life | The Stoic Secret to Finding Real Joy

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Marcus Aurelius called them the touchstones of goodness. courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. To millions they're known as the cardinal virtues, four near universal ideals adopted by Christianity and most of Western philosophy, but equally valued in Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about every other philosophy and religious tradition you can imagine. They're called cardinal,

C. S. Lewis pointed out, not because they come down from church authorities, but because they originate from the Latin cardo or hinge. It's pivotal stuff, the stuff that the door to the good life hangs on. Like the cardinal directions, the four main points

On the compass, north, south, east, west, the four virtues are a kind of compass, a guide to what to do, who to be, how to behave, how to respond in every situation, to respond with courage or bravery or fortitude, honor, sacrifice. Temperance, that's self control, moderation, composure, balance. Justice, that's fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness, and then wisdom, that's knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, and serenity. These are the key to a life of excellence in every sense. If at some point in your life, Marcus wrote, you should come across anything better than justice, prudence, self-control, courage, if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations.

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