Here’s How to See Life

"Most people see life as a kind of a race. They want to win. They want to get somewhere. They want to do it better than other people. Certainly, one can see how this approach can produce impressive results. By creating a competition, by creating a way to keep score, it’s natural that one will do well by those metrics. The problem is that life isn’t a race, and even if it were, there’s no evidence that we’re all in the same race."Ryan explains a better way to perceive life, 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 Daily Stoic: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.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Here's how to see life. Most people see life as a kind of race. They want to win. They want to get somewhere. They want to do it better than other people. And certainly, one can see how this approach can produce impressive results. By creating a competition, by creating a way to keep score, it's natural that one will do well by those metrics. The problem is that life isn't a race, and even if it were, there's no evidence that we're all in the same race. "There is no race, there is only a runner," the band Lucius sings in their song "Two of Us on the Run." The tie to Stoicism there is not in the fact that the name of the band is the same name as Marcus Aurelius's stepbrother and co-emperor. It's in the realization that while we are not racing each other, we are still playing

• 1:14Ryan Holiday?

  a sport. In fact, it's a harder sport because without an ability to win, we have to find new ways to measure and motivate ourselves. Marcus Aurelius wrote about how if you want good in the world, you have to find it in yourself. He also wrote about what a sad sight it was when you looked at the people who were the most driven, the most competitive, the most angry. "Where are they now?" he said. "Not in some eternal winner's circle. They're dead and gone and forgotten, or soon to be forgotten." Indeed, we have to follow the lyrics to the song and just put one foot in front of the other, because that's life. We do our best. We find motivation internally, intrinsically, in realizing our potential, in showing up, in doing the work, not in comparison, not in victory, because no such

• 1:58Ryan Holiday?

  thing exists, except over ourselves.

• 2:03Speaker 00

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