Will You Receive This Gift? | Turn Words Into Works

This is the story of Jesus, who people all over the world celebrate today on Christmas. But just as well, this is the story of Seneca. Remarkably, Seneca and Jesus lived nearly parallel lives. Not only that, but they were also born—according to many sources—in the same year. No one can confirm for certain the exact birth date for either, but it is indisputable that two of history’s greatest philosophers walked the earth at the same time. More incredible is just how much their teachings overlap. And it’s worth taking some time this Christmas morning to consider those similarities. You have to seek out challenges. You have to find ways to keep growing. You can’t stay the same. You can’t betray your potential. You can’t wait any longer to demand the best for yourself. Demand more of yourself in 2024. Sign up and join us in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge TODAY!---And in today's Daily Stoic journal reading, Ryan reminds us that the art of living will never be found anywhere but in our own efforts to be good people, to get active in our rescue, and starting the year off by holding ourselves accountable.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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.

• 0:02Ryan 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. Will you receive this gift? Over 2,000 years ago, one of the world's greatest philosophers was born.

• 0:47Ryan Holiday?

  He came of age under the Roman Empire and spread a message of kindness and mercy in doing one's duty. He taught millions how to live and how to die over the course of his life and his legacy, how to better themselves and treat their neighbors too. But eventually, this wisdom grew controversial, a threat to the state, and his death came at the hands of the centurions they sent for him. And yet, even during the very public agony and humiliation of his death, he asked his loved ones and followers to stay strong, to forgive the excesses of an emperor who did not know what he was doing. In those brave final moments, he immortalized himself forever.

• 1:27Ryan Holiday?

  This is the story of Jesus, who people all over the world celebrate today on Christmas. But just as well, this is the story of Seneca. Remarkably, Seneca and Jesus lived nearly parallel lives. Not only that, but they were born, according to many sources, in the same year. No one can confirm for certain the exact birthday for either, but it is indisputable that two of history's greatest philosophers walked the earth at the same time. More incredible is just how much their teachings overlap, and it's worth taking some time on this Christmas morning to consider those similarities. "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." That's Jesus. "Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness." That's Seneca.

• 2:10Ryan Holiday?

  If someone strikes you on the right cheek, then turn to him the other also. That's Jesus. It is a petty and sorry person who will bite back when he is bitten. That's Seneca. We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance, and endurance develops strength of character. That's Jesus. Constant misfortune brings this one blessing to whom it always assails, it eventually fortifies. That's Seneca. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? That's Jesus. You look at the pimples of others when you yourself are covered with a mass of sores. That's Seneca. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

• 2:55Ryan Holiday?

  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. That's Jesus. Two elements must therefore be rooted out once and for all: the fear of future suffering and the recollection of past suffering, since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet. That's Seneca. Ultimately, both these men lived on far beyond their deaths. According to Scripture, Jesus, he would rise from the dead after three days. And Seneca, through his writings, feels as alive to us as he would have to many Romans. So on this Christmas Day, we can simply marvel at this near miracle, that two wise men were alive at the same time, and through their sufferings and teachings, a great legacy has been passed down to us.

• 3:39Ryan Holiday?

  Which one of them we choose to rely on most heavily is an individual decision, but that we should do something with their teachings, that's a gift we would all be wise to receive this Christmas. Anyways, Merry Christmas, everyone. I love putting this together, these Christmas messages, every year, and it's been my privilege and honor to do this now, every Christmas since 2016. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, giving me the platform, for making me better by allowing me to write this to you. I hope to see you all in the Daily Stoic New Year Challenge, which is going to start in just a few days. I mean, 2024 is going to be here before we know it. You can join there at dailystoic.com/challenge.

• 4:23Ryan Holiday?

  And now I'm going to go be with my family, and I hope you do the same.

• 4:36Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. This is the last of these entries of the year, the last, as we pull from the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Meditations of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living." I think ultimately, it's about turning words into works. Marcus Aurelius spent a great deal of time on his journals, yet within these pages, we find him admonishing himself to throw them away, to never read them. Why? Because he didn't want it to be an excuse from the essential tasks at hand. "The art of living will never be found anywhere but in our own efforts to be a good person."

• 5:18Ryan Holiday?

  Never forget that that is the aim of Stoicism and of your own journals. It's not to fill up pages with pretty thoughts, but inspire you to take action, to turn the words, as Seneca said, into works. And in that, we have the perfect place to end the year with the ultimate Stoic prompt: Get active in your own rescue. And we have two quotes this week from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, and then one from Seneca's Moral Letters. "Stop wandering about," Marcus says. "You aren't likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or anthologies you've collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life's purpose. Toss aside empty hopes.

• 5:59Ryan Holiday?

  Get active in your own rescue. If you care for yourself at all, do it while you can." That's Marcus Aurelius 3:14. "You have proof in the extent of your wanderings that you never found the art of living anywhere, not in logic, nor in wealth, nor in fame, or in any indulgence. Nowhere. Where is it, then? In doing what human nature demands." And how is a person to do this? By having principles be the source of desire and action. What principles? Those to do with good and evil, indeed, in the belief that there is no good for a human being except what creates justice, self-control, courage, and freedom.

• 6:43Ryan Holiday?

  And nothing evil except what destroys these things. That's Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 8:1. And then ultimately, Seneca in Moral Letters 108, he says, "All study of philosophy and reading should be for the purpose of living a happy life. We should seek precepts to help us, noble and courageous words that can become facts. We should learn them in a way that the words become works." And ultimately, look, that's, that's the journey for me, ironically, as a writer, is that I write them, that's my job. But if I don't listen to them, if I don't get better at it, then I'm, what am I? I'm not, I'm nothing but a sophist, right? And what are you?

• 7:24Ryan Holiday?

  If you read about Stoicism, if you listen to this podcast, if you follow the quotes on Instagram or watch the videos, but you're not actually getting better day to day, you're not getting better at those virtues. Courage, self-control, justice, wisdom. You're not focused on applying the ideas. Ultimately, that's what matters. As Marcus Aurelius says, "We should waste no more time arguing what a good person is. Be one," as Epictetus talks about, "embody the ideas." Am I as good at that as I want to be? Are you? Right? All this stuff is pretty straightforward, pretty simple. You find yourself nodding your head to it.

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  But then when you're tired, and when you're frustrated, then when you're trying to do something that's really important to you, when things are really going sideways, well, it's hard to actually stick with them. It's hard to actually apply them. Right?

• 8:24Ryan Holiday?

  But that's the whole point. That's the whole point of the philosophy. Look, I take some solace in the fact that clearly Marcus Aurelius is struggling with that. Right? He's saying that even as an old man, right? He's telling himself, you gotta stop wandering about. He's saying, you still haven't figured it out. You gotta get active in your rescue now before it's too late. So I take some solace in the fact that one of the greatest Stoics to ever live is still struggling with that. You know, many decades older than I am. But that time is tick, tick, ticking away. And those opportunities are passing us by. And so the purpose of the Daily Stoic Journal, the purpose of the Daily Stoic Podcast,

• 9:04Ryan Holiday?

  the purpose of all this content, obviously, yes, it's compelling to me as a writer. I feel a duty to bring the ideas to other people. But ultimately, what I'm really trying to work on is just be a little bit better at them day to day in my own life. How would I grade myself on that? I don't know. Not as, not as high as I'd like, but higher than before. Right? Higher than if the intervention had never happened. Which is ultimately, right? How we judge medicine, how we judge anything scientifically. We compare it against a control group. We compare it against a placebo. And I know how I was before. I know what I'm capable of if I don't try.

• 9:49Ryan Holiday?

  If I just sort of go the path of least resistance. If I think about what I could get away with. That's not enough. We have to be better than that. We have to push ourselves. So that's ultimately the whole purpose of Stoicism. That's the thought I want to leave you here with at the end of the year. It's about turning the words into works. What do you have to show for it? It's not about pretending. It's not about imitating. It's about action. It's about putting up the numbers, putting up the results. Trying to get a little bit better every single day. I don't expect magical transformation from myself or from you. That's not possible. This isn't about epiphany.

• 10:31Ryan Holiday?

  But it is about repetition and practice, holding yourself accountable. And with that, I bid you adieu to the end of this year. I hope you can look back, reflect here as the year is winding up and see where you could have done better. Hope you can set aside some plans, some goals for the next year. I hope you can build on the successes that you did have. That's what I'm going to try to do. And we'll be right back at this again because we don't stop. Talk soon.

• 11:07Ryan Holiday?

  If you're ready to do a clean break, well, let's do the 2024 Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge together. It's beginning Monday, January 1st. So you don't have much time. You can do that at dailystoic.com/challenge or dailystoiclife.com.