One idea a day, from someone who's been there. This is today's:
No. 1 · Control
The two piles
Two thousand years ago a former slave turned teacher said that everything in life falls into two piles. Things up to us: our judgments, our choices, our effort. Things not up to us: other people, the weather, the past, how it all turns out.
Almost all of my worst days came from treating pile two like pile one.
Source
Enchiridion, Epictetus. Worth reading in full; it's short.
Today
Think of the thing that annoyed you most yesterday. Which pile was it in?
He was the old priest whose one sermon you still remember, though you've forgotten all the others. The neighbour who never married because his parents had a view, and who now sits on the step some evenings with a glass and a regret he won't name.
Your grandmother at the Sunday table, saying one sentence that turned out to be the whole thing. And if you were lucky, a real old friend, the one who could say the hard thing because he'd earned it.
Most of us had one or two of those people. Few of us had them at the right moment. Old Friend is all of them in one chair, writing to you every morning.
···
Warsaw, October 2026
Hi,
I'm Kuba. I write software for a living, in Warsaw, and I'm the one behind Old Friend. I started it because I wanted the friend I didn't have at twenty-eight.
Here is how it goes. Every morning at eight, your time, one card arrives: one idea, where it came from, and one small thing to try that day. You answer with one tap. Done, not today, or not for me, and not for me means that topic is gone for good. If you like, you keep one line for future you. Some day it comes back to you.
The ideas aren't mine. They come from Epictetus and Seneca, Viktor Frankl, Mel Robbins, Oliver Burkeman, Annie Duke, James Clear, John Gottman, Morgan Housel, and a few thousand years of people who got it wrong first. Every card names its book, and honestly, I'd rather you read the book.
Every card is rewritten by me and read out loud before it reaches you. More on how it's made.
The first fourteen days are free, no card needed. After that it's $39 a year. If that's too much, write and tell me. No proof needed.
Kuba
P.S. If you'd like tomorrow's card, leave your email.