This Is The Only Way To See Life | Don’t Look For The Third Thing

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

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:37Ryan Holiday?

  I've raved about my wife Samantha many times here on the podcast. And I came up with this picture that I wanted to get framed for her. And that's why I thought of today's sponsor Framebridge. You just go to framebridge.com and basically you upload the picture, or the art, or they'll even send you packaging to safely mail in the physical pieces. Then you preview the item online. There's dozens of frame styles, wall layouts. You choose your favorite. They'll give you free recommendations from their talented designers. And then they custom frame your item and deliver your finished piece directly to your door, ready to hang. Instead of the hundreds you pay at a framing store, their prices all start at 39 bucks and shipping is free. Plus, listeners to this podcast will get 15% off their first

• 1:21Ryan Holiday?

  order at framebridge.com when they use the code STOIC. Order online at framebridge.com or stop by a Framebridge store to work with a designer in person if you're in New York, DC, Atlanta, Philly, Boston, or Chicago. Highly recommend. And thank you to Framebridge for helping me set up a gift for my wife.

• 1:45Ryan Holiday?

  This is the only way to see life.

• 1:50Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus obviously didn't want his most trusted general, Avidius Cassius, to attempt a coup. It was quite literally a life-threatening betrayal. And Marcus could have been angry. He could have demanded all the sadistic revenge possible to a man of his unlimited power. Instead, he saw it as a chance to practice virtue. "It was a chance," he said, "to forgive a man who has wronged one, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith." James Stockdale obviously didn't want his A4E Skyhawk to be shot down over Vietnam. As he parachuted down to his capture, he could have been scared, he could have cried and cursed

• 2:32Ryan Holiday?

  the skies. Instead, he famously said to himself, "I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of epictetus." He saw an opportunity work on his courage, his wisdom, his self-discipline, his sense of justice. He saw that he could turn the experience into the defining event of his life, which he said in retrospect, "I would not trade." Zelensky obviously didn't want Ukraine to be brutally and capriciously invaded. He could have fled, he could have taken the ride that his allies offered, could have taken the opportunities to be rescued. Instead, a man of grim determination and resilience emerged. Zelensky became a pivot point in world history, and in the moment, he met adversity with virtue, met the crisis

• 3:14Ryan Holiday?

  with courage and justice. "May you never face such a serious and deadly crisis, but you will face adversity as your fate as a human being. How will you respond? How will you decide to see hardship? Let virtue lead the way," Seneca said, "and every step will be safe." Perhaps "safe" is the wrong word, as the suffering and danger that Marcus and Stockdale and Zelensky have faced has demonstrated, but it will be the right path. And as we've been saying over and over again, "Let the four virtues guide you like the cardinal directions of the compass. Let them help you see hardship in life as an opportunity, as grist for the mill, as a chance to prove your mettle, as an opportunity to practice

• 3:59Ryan Holiday?

  one or more of the four virtues: courage, temperance, justice, wisdom." And as I think we can use examples like Zelensky and Stockdale and Marcus to help guide us to be north stars as far as virtue in these crises go, I think just keeping those four virtues top of mind, having some totem or token of them can be really helpful, too. And that's the idea behind the Daily Stoic Four Virtues Pendant. We've had the challenge coin for a long time. Actually, here's mine. Right here on my desk, but I also have the new Daily Stoic Four Virtues Pendant.

• 4:41Ryan Holiday?

  That's it here. You can hear it on my desk. Acta non verba, deeds not words. The front of the pendant features a custom-designed seal, right? Lion, that's courage. A man sprinkling water into a jug of wine, that's this ancient symbol for temperance. Set of scales, justice, an owl, the symbol of wisdom. And on the back, it says acta non verba, which is Latin for actions, not words, or deeds, not words. I would love for you to check this out. We worked with this awesome jeweler in Brooklyn to make these new pendants. I'm always trying to improve what we do at Daily Stoic, and

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  I really reimagined what the pendants we have at Daily Stoic look like here. There's a new chain, a new pendant, new sterling silver. And it's really great. You can check it out at dailystoic.com/virtuespendant, or you can go to store.dailystoic.com.

• 5:46Ryan Holiday?

  Don't look for the third thing.

• 5:51Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics teach us that doing well is its own reward. To do the right thing, to see someone helped by it, this is enough. To go around expecting thanks, what Marcus Aurelius describes as the third thing, that is to miss the point. It's being greedy. Keeping score not only misses the purposes of being good, it's foolish, sets you up for disappointment. If you're going to do some accounting, look at it from the other direction. How many people have helped us? What do we owe them in return? Think about clearing some debts this week, and consider forgetting any notion of others owing you. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living, together

• 6:36Ryan Holiday?

  by myself and the wonderful Steve Hanselman. You can buy this anywhere books are sold. I sell a bunch of signed copies, personalize it. Usually write, "Prepare and reflect," in the Daily Stoic Store. You can buy that at [email protected]. And we've got two quotes from Marcus to think about today. "One person on doing well by others immediately accounts the expected favor in return. Another is not so quick, but still considers the person a debtor and knows the favor. A third kind of person acts as if not conscious of the deed, rather like a vine producing a cluster of grapes without making further demands, like a horse after its race, or a dog after its walk, or a bee after making its honey. Such a person having done a good

• 7:18Ryan Holiday?

  deed won't go shouting from rooftops, but simply moves on to the next deed, just like the vine produces another bunch of grapes in the right season." It's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 5:6. It's such a beautiful image, like, plants produce fruit. They don't even reap the benefits of that fruit. They just do it because that's their nature, that's their job. And then we have one more. "When you've done well and another has benefited by it, why, like a fool, do you look for the third thing on top, credit for the good deed or favor in return?" That's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 7:7-3. Anytime Marcus is repeating himself in meditation, I think it's illustrative. And I think he is doing what we all do, right? He did something good, then he was disappointed

• 8:03Ryan Holiday?

  that it either wasn't recognized, or he was frustrated that it was actually interpreted incorrectly, or maybe he saw... Like, imagine you're Marcus Aurelius, you're trying not to be corrupted by power, you've seen what your horrible predecessors have done, and you're being attacked for it. He said, "The rewards of being a leader is to do good things and earn a bad reputation. You still get attacked." And then, not only that, you see, as we're seeing now politically, right, you see one side attempting to be bipartisan, and the other side not being bipartisan, in fact, taking advantage of even the impulse to be bipartisan, right?

• 8:44Ryan Holiday?

  So there's a... If you're going through life looking for this third thing, and I do this all the time myself, if you're going through life looking for that third thing, you're going to be disappointed all the time. And you're going to question why you were doing the good thing. Because if you're doing it in this quid pro quo, one hand washes the other, you do a thing, they do a thing, you start to go, "This is a sucker's payoff." Like, "I'm doing the right thing, and I'm not getting anything for it. I'm going to stop doing the right thing." No, the Stoics want you to think, no, the right thing is your job. You do the right thing because it produces pleasure for you. You do the right thing because that's what you were put here on this planet to do. You do the right thing because it's the right thing. Everything else is extra.

• 9:28Ryan Holiday?

  I've talked about this a bunch of times, but it's just sort of like a top of mind example. Cause I was just doing it this morning. We, we pick up trash on this, on this walk that we, that we go on in the mornings. And, you know, I remember we, we, there was so much trash. I think I was telling you this, there's so much trash the other day that we had to get the ATV out and go out and pick it. We pick up this huge trash bin full of trash. And the next morning I go for a walk and, you know, I somewhat expect, okay, people threw some trash out of their car on the, the next day or whatever. It's actually worse than that. Someone threw a fucking dead dog on the side of my road. Right? So I can get upset by this. I can get disgusted by this.

• 10:12Ryan Holiday?

  Or I can just deal with it. Right? I, I say my job is I have given myself this job of keeping this thing clean because it gives me pleasure knowing I took this trash out of the environment. It's not clogging up river streams. It's not getting in, you know, any animals' bellies. I'm doing that because I think it's the right thing to do. I don't want to be thanked. I don't want credit for it. I don't need everyone to follow suit. I'm just going to do it. But I have to under, I have to remind myself again, no one's on the same page as you. There's still going to be some crazy person discarding dead animal car. I don't even want to know why this is happening. It's insane. It's actually been a thing that's happened like since I've lived out in the country.

• 10:57Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know if people, they can't be hitting them with their cars because like, well, I mean, you would just leave it there. I don't know if there's a dog fighting ring out here or if it's a cultural thing. I don't, I don't, it's crazy. And so I just.

• 11:14Ryan Holiday?

  I had, I called a different neighbor and I said, hey, can you get your tractor, scoop this thing up, dispose of it, and we'll move on, go about our days and try to keep doing the right thing and not let the bastards bring us down. Don't look for the third thing, do the right thing because it's the right thing. That's this week's lesson. And as we said in the little meditations, forgive the debts that others owe you and be very diligent about paying your debts to all the people who have selflessly done

• 11:46Ryan Holiday?

  good things for you in this world over the years. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.