Build A Life You Aren’t Trying To Flee

Of course, it’s lovely to take a vacation. It’s lovely to go to cool places. Even on the weekend, it’s lovely to go places and do things we can’t do during the week. But Seneca tells us to be careful. He quotes Lucretius who said, “Thus each man flees himself,” then elaborates, “But to what end if he does not escape himself? He pursues and dogs himself as his own most tedious companion. And so we must realize that our difficulty is not the fault of the places but of ourselves.”We all seem to be traveling from destination to destination, even when we arrive at our destination.✉️ 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  Build a life you aren't trying to flee. Of course, it's lovely to take a vacation. It's lovely to go cool places. Even on the weekend, it's lovely to go places and do things we can't do during the week. But Seneca tells us to be careful. He quotes Lucretius, who said that "thus each man flees himself." But then Seneca elaborates, "But to what end if he does not escape himself? He pursues and dogs himself as his most tedious companion, and we must realize that our difficulty is not the fault of the places, but of ourselves." We all seem to be traveling from one destination to the next, even when we arrive at our destination.

• 1:13Ryan Holiday?

  At lunch on vacation, we're making plans for dinner. At one tourist attraction, we're excited for the next one. On the beach, we look forward to the pool, and in the pool, we look forward to tomorrow's day at the beach. We, Seneca writes, "make one journey after another and change spectacle for spectacle." Be wary of the urge to be constantly on the move. As the Stoics say, "You will not find what you are looking for: happiness, joy, serenity, peace, fulfillment, in these externals, or in these external places. You can only find it internally, because you can't flee yourself. You have to build a life, a self, that you don't want to escape from.