There Is No “One Last Job”

"Just a few more years we tell ourselves. Just until I make enough money. After I make rank. Almost there. These are the lies we tell ourselves, the rationales for why we’re doing the thing we hate or being the kind of person we’d rather not be."Ryan tells us why you must leave the intolerable situation you find yourself in, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. There is no one last job. Just a few more years, we tell ourselves, just until I make enough money, after I make rank, almost there. These are the lies we tell ourselves, the rationalizations for why we're doing the thing we hate, or being the kind of person

• 0:47Ryan Holiday?

  we'd rather not be. Seneca did this. He took what was probably supposed to be a short gig tutoring a young prince, because it would end his exile, and ended up, years later, still in Nero's service. Time and time again, he must have told himself, "I'll get out soon. Just let me get the boy on firmer footing. Just let me get through this consulship." He was telling the lie that the brilliant comedian and writer Pete Holmes talked to me about on the Daily Stoic podcast recently. He called this "the lie of one last job." It's the lie that bank robbers tell themselves, just as comedians or musicians do. "One more tour, one more album, then I'll slow down." But it never happens. It can't happen. Seneca

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  was never able to get out, never able to get free. He tried to give Nero his fortune back, but it didn't work. Only with death was he let go, let go from the addiction to power, the addiction to doing, the fantasy of one last job. "You could leave life right now," Marcus Aurelius reminds us. We have to let that determine what we do and say and think, as well as the jobs we take. "Life is too short to be or do things you know aren't right, that you know you aren't meant to do. Don't put it off. Don't lie to yourself. It will never happen unless you pull the trigger right now." And that's what this exercise of memento mori is about. You touch that coin in your pocket, or the ring, or the pendant around your neck. It's supposed to remind you... I might not get any more time.

• 2:13Ryan Holiday?

  Am I glad to spend it this way? Is this what I was put on the earth to do? As Marcus Aurelius said, am I afraid of death? Because I won't be able to do this anymore. And that usually gives us some very clear, dramatic perspective. You could check out some of our Memento Mori products in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com.