Life is Overwhelming. Or Is It?

"It’s incredible to think of what has occurred in the last twenty years. The tech bubble. 9/11. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Great Recession. The Syrian Civil War. The Arab Spring. And now the COVID-19 Pandemic, and unprecedented protests and clashes between authorities and civilians. Even the last few months, as people have come to joke, feel like years all by themselves. Impeachment. The primaries. Pandemic. Police. It’s too much. Overwhelming, yeah? Or is it just… life?"Ryan talks about the chaos inherent in life and how we all can deal with it 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 @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  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. Life is overwhelming, or is it? It's incredible to think of what has occurred in the last 20 years: the tech bubble, 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Great Recession, the Syrian Civil War, the Arab Spring, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic.

• 0:47Ryan Holiday?

  Even the last few months, as people have come to joke, feel like years all by themselves: impeachment, the primaries, pandemic. It's too much, overwhelming, yeah? Or is it just life? Remember that in a span of less than two years, Seneca lost his father, got married, then lost his firstborn son, and then 20 days after bearing his son, he would be banished from Rome by the Emperor Claudius. Think of Marcus Aurelius's reign, which lasted just 19 years. This turned out to be enough time for a plague, a coup by one of his closest friends, to lose multiple children, the loss of his stepbrother and co-ruler, and economic crisis, and more. And think about that three-year period for Theodore Roosevelt, where he got married,

• 1:32Ryan Holiday?

  wrote a book, graduated from law school, won his first public office, and then had his first daughter. Then 48 hours later, the same day, in the same house, he lost his beloved mother and his wife. To say that this was a lot for these men would be a preposterous understatement. But guess what? They got through it, as you will get through it, as you have already gotten through so much. Because that's what life is: it's tackling problems day to day, step by step. As Marcus said, "We can't let the whole of life overwhelm us." No, we have to concentrate like Romans. We have to say "amor fati," and we have to keep calm and carry on, because that's all we can do.

• 2:14Ryan Holiday?

  Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email. Thank you.