The Evening Review
The Evening Review is a Stoic practice of deliberately looking back over your day, judging your own actions against your own values, and using what you find to do better tomorrow. The Stoics had no single Greek term for it, but it grows from the broader practice of self-examination they called "episkepsis" (a Greek word meaning close inspection or scrutiny). This week you will learn what the Evening Review is, why the Stoics thought it was essential, and how to make it a living habit rather than just a ritual.
Passage
Have thoughts like these ready at hand by night and by day; write them, read them, make your conversation about them, communing with yourself, or saying to another, "Can you give me some help in this matter?" And again, go now to one man and now to another.
— Epictetus, Discourses 3.24.103
Reflection
Epictetus makes a point that is easy to miss: the thoughts you use for self-examination need to be kept close and made familiar, not stored away for a quiet Sunday. He says to write them, read them, talk about them, carry them into conversation. The Evening Review depends on having a vocabulary ready, a short list of questions or principles you actually know by heart, so that when you sit down to examine the day, you are not starting from scratch. This week is partly about building that vocabulary.
Go deeper
Which one question, if you asked it of yourself every single evening, would most honestly expose the gap between the person you want to be and the person you were today?
Practice
Draft Your Review Questions
Write down two or three questions you could ask yourself every evening. They should be specific enough to get honest answers, not 'Was I good today?' but something like 'Did I say something I knew was unkind?' Keep this list; you will use it at the end of the week.