We’ve Always Done This | Balance The Books Of Life Daily

This is what it is to be a human. Some of it good, some of it better to resist. 📓 Check out Ryan Holiday's favorite journals: The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living by Ryan Holiday: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-journal-signed-editionhttps://store.dailystoic.com/ One Line a Day (A Five-Year Memory Book) https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/gift4?_pos=1&_sid=ea42aeb06&_ss=r: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/gift4?_pos=1&_sid=ea42aeb06&_ss=r 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  We have always done this. The ancient world was very different from ours, obviously. They had different technology, they had different customs, different gods, different lifespans. And yet, they were also tantalizingly similar to us, just as the people in the distant past must have seemed tantalizingly similar to them. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius observes that even in the bygone days of Vespasian or Trajan, people did the exact same things they were doing in his time: marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives,

• 1:38Ryan Holiday?

  falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power, he writes. What's remarkable is how people are doing the exact same thing in the modern world, too. And this list goes on. Things you did today, people did 1,000 years ago, maybe even 5,000 years ago. They decided to take the scenic route. They talked baby talk to their dog. They arrived late anxiously. They stayed up late, reading or talking. They were short with their children. They gossiped about a mutual friend. They fretted about their parents. They got caught up in a project and forgot to eat lunch. They caught a vain look in the mirror. They pinched fat on their belly. They got in an argument. They got a song stuck in their heads.

• 2:22Ryan Holiday?

  This is what we do. This is what it means to be human. Some of it is good and some of it is better to resist. But it's the rhythm of life, the bleeding of eras one into the other. No change, just repetition, just foolishness and greatness, all side by side. So the next time you feel exasperated, annoyed, joyful, or curious, remember countless generations before you felt exactly the same way. And we are all participants in this ancient eternal human dance. Different eras, same steps.

• 3:05Ryan Holiday?

  Balance the books of life daily. One of the reasons we journal is as a way of gathering up life's experiences, its insights, its frustrations, its unexpected struggles and triumphs and more. And in all of this, we are making a reckoning of our progress on life's way. Seneca, whose father-in-law was in charge of keeping the books on Rome's granary, liked the metaphor of balancing life's books each day. Rather than postpone, our impulse each day should be to bring things as much as possible to completion. Why? Because we never know what tomorrow might bring.

• 3:46Ryan Holiday?

  Epictetus too would tell his students that the important thing was that they had begun. Begun to practice, to learn, to get better. So, give yourself some credit this week for the journey that you're on, and reflect on how far you have come, and how far you have left to go. And we have three quotes, two from Seneca, one from Epictetus. Seneca says, "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. Life's greatest flaw is that it is always imperfect, and a certain portion of it is postponed. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time."

• 4:32Ryan Holiday?

  And that's from Moral Letters 101. And then Seneca, and he's writing this to his father-in-law. He says, "Believe me, it's better to produce the balance sheet of your own life than of the grain market." He says this on the shortness of life. And then Epictetus says, "I am your teacher, and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small. And your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things. Why, then, don't you complete the work? If you have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation, what is missing? The work is quite feasible. It's the only thing in our power. Let go of the past.

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  We must only begin. Believe me, and you will see." I was thinking about this idea of keeping life's books with the fact that I just finished my David Stokes journal, and I know some of you have been on that path with me as well. So, as I cracked open a fresh one, that was pretty cool. And I'm about to finish my one-line-a-day journal. So, I've been doing it every day. And just to have that finished is like an incredible, cool experience.

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  And to think of the reflection that went into this. And so, you know, when we talk about journaling, it's not just a sort of a cathartic thing. It's not just a moment of stillness in the morning or the afternoon, or whenever you happen to do it. To me, the power of it is that it is recording your progress as you go. When I look at some of the things that I wrote five years ago, when I think about what I was going through five years ago, right? I just, I am proud of myself for the work that I have been putting in on myself. There's a great line, it's not in today's entry, but Epictetus says, he says, "Some people delight

• 6:33Ryan Holiday?

  in improving their farm. Me, I delight in my own improvement day to day." And I think that's what the journal is really capturing, is that day to day improvement, that work that I've been putting in. And listening to this podcast is a little bit of work. Your journaling is a little bit of work. The reading you're doing is a little bit of work. The conversations you're having with a spouse or a friend or in the day of stock life group, that's a little bit of progress. And all of this, it might not seem like much as you're doing each individual thing. But as George Washington liked to say, "Many mickles make a muckle," or as Xeno said, "Well-being is realized by small steps, but it's not a small thing." And so as we chip away at this stuff, as we make a little bit of progress,

• 7:15Ryan Holiday?

  it might not feel like much today or in the moment, but cumulatively, it is adding up. It is taking you somewhere. And that is not to be underrated. And yeah, when I did the journal, I didn't know how it would work. I didn't have this kind of daily journaling practice, like prompt based. But it's been a wonderful addition to my routine. And I've heard from so many people who've had the same experience. And anyways, it's been wonderful. And I hope you can do more than just follow along with the podcast, but you can grab a version of it yourself.

• 7:59Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.