Life Is Predictably Unpredictable | Trust But Verify

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

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  Life is predictably unpredictable. In March 2020, uncertainty gripped the world as the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly. The markets were crashing, businesses were shutting down, schools and universities closed their doors. As strict lockdown measures confined millions to their homes, Brent Underwood, who I've been telling you about recently, my partner here at Daily Stoic, thought he'd found the perfect place to ride out the pandemic: a small ghost town in California. It was safe and isolated, beautiful and quiet for a second, then a freak series of snowstorms trapped in there for weeks with dwindling supplies and no running water. His retreat turned suddenly into a prison, then he had

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

  a bout with appendicitis that required him to drive himself two hours to the closest clinic. As we've said here many times, life comes at you fast. And once it starts coming, it doesn't stop coming. The rest of the snow melted, work progressed on the town, media attention poured in. The New York Times profiled him and the town in a long-awaited piece. And then, before he even had time to send the article to his family, the town's crown jewel, the American Hotel, burned to the ground. Exactly 149 years to the day it had opened. From triumph to disaster in a matter of hours. Seneca himself tells the story of Rome burning to the ground and how the city of lions came to her aid with a large donation.

• 2:14Ryan Holiday?

  Little did lions know that within a year, Rome would be returning the favor because lions had burned. Life is unpredictable, yet somehow very predictable. It comes at us fast, it doesn't stop. It puffs us up, it brings us low. It blesses us and curses us. All we can do is be ready. All we can do is be generous to others when they fall and struggle. All we can do is pick up the pieces and keep going. Anyways, this is a story Brent tells in Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley, which I was lucky enough to work on. It's a book I love. I love the Seragord story. It's why I've been talking about it so much here at Daily Stoic. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should. It debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List and it's just an awesome book.

• 2:59Ryan Holiday?

  I think you'll really like it. You can grab that. We have some signed numbered first editions over at The Painted Porch. I'll link to that in today's show notes. Check it out.

• 3:20Ryan Holiday?

  Trust, but verify. This is the April 5th entry in the Daily Stoic. Today's quote is from Epictetus's Discourses 2:18. He says, "First off, don't let the force of an impression carry you away. Say to it, 'Hold up a bit. Let me see who you are, where you are from. Let me put you to the test.'" "One of the wonders of your mind is the quickness with which it can comprehend and categorize things. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Blink, 'We are constantly making split-second decisions

• 4:01Ryan Holiday?

  based on years of experience and knowledge, as well as using the same skill to confirm prejudices, stereotypes, and assumptions. Clearly, the former thinking is a source of strength, whereas the latter is a great weakness. We lose very little, though, by taking a beat to consider our own thoughts. Is it really so bad? What do I really know about this person? Why do I have such strong feelings here? Is anxiety really adding much to the situation? What's so special about..."

• 4:34Ryan Holiday?

  By asking these questions, by putting our impressions to the test, as Epictetus recommends, we're less likely to be carried away by them or make a move based on a mistaken or biased one. We're still free to use our instincts, but we should always, as the Russian proverb says, "Trust, but verify." You know, it is funny, right? I think the impression of the Stoics is that they have no emotions, that they're unfeeling, unflinching. I don't really think that's it, that is it at all. I think they're just, they're not as immediately reactive or emotional because they do this.

• 5:19Ryan Holiday?

  They stop and they think about it. They stop and they question. They put it to the test. One of the things my therapist has said, you know, you start to say something and she cuts me off. She goes, "No, preface it with what I make up about that is," right? Because like it's so easy to take what we're about to say or what we think has verifiable, indisputable fact, when it's really opinion, when it's really an assumption, when it's really a stereotype, when it's really an extrapolation, an inference. It's not real. And once you put it to the test, you go, oh yeah, this is, this isn't really based on anything.

• 6:03Ryan Holiday?

  I've, I've, I've made this up. I'm guessing. I'm basing it on past experience. And when I stop and go, hey, is this really so bad? Is it really what I think it is? What do I know about this? Hannah, hey buddy.

• 6:22Ryan Holiday?

  Sorry, my son just came out of his room to the bathroom. So I'll, I'll let this pause a little bit.

• 6:36Ryan Holiday?

  Hey Sam. Clarky, can you go in your room? I'll send mom in.

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  This is making for a super entertaining, super entertaining episode. I think I'm gonna leave this all in for you, so you just get, you guys get a taste of, of what my life is.

• 6:53Ryan Holiday?

  You know, even, even stuff like that, right? I try to, you know, maybe sometimes your first instinct is, oh, this is an inconvenience. Oh, this is annoying. Oh, this is not how it's supposed to be. And then you stop and you go, but is that true? Actually, is it an opportunity? To me, that's what, what Marx was reminding himself with that idea of the obstacle is the way. Right? You go, okay, yes, I can see it this way. As a problem, it's not how I want things to be.

• 7:22Ryan Holiday?

  As an inconvenience or whatever. And then actually, we can stop and think, no, it's this chance to do something. It's a chance for things to go differently. It's a chance to do it again, like, as a, seriously, I'm gonna wrap this up here in just a minute. And then I'm gonna go in and get a second chance to lay with my son as he goes to bed. And that's not annoying, that's not a problem, right? Like bedtime is not real. And this is important, these are arbitrarily made up things to begin with, right? But that's not how I always think about them. That's not how I necessarily think about them naturally. But it's taking this second to put it to the test, to think about it, to question it. And that's true for the email that you just got that had a rude tone.

• 8:08Ryan Holiday?

  Did it have a rude tone or did it have no tone at all? And that's what you thought was rude. Did it have a rude tone because that's the voice in your head? Not what was coming across, what did this person mean? What's a nice way to interpret, right? You can put

• 8:25Ryan Holiday?

  All these impressions, assumptions to the test, and you should. And the more that you do that, the better and happier you will be, the more stoic you will be. Now, sometimes that initial instinct is correct. That's what that expression "trust but verify" means. You verify. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're not, but you've got to do that work. And you understand that, you know, your mind is not always your friend.

• 8:55Ryan Holiday?

  And your impressions are not always right. When you go, "I trust my gut," do you deserve to trust that gut, right? Have you done the work that warrants that? Or would just a little more investigation, a little pause, a little more thinking, would that actually make everything better? I think that it would. So with that, I'll close up today's episode. I'm not going to record anymore. I'm going to go get a second crack at bedtime with my wife and son. And I hope that you are probably listening to this in the morning. So I'll wish you a good day and talk to y'all soon.