There Needs To Be Outlets | Keeping “The News” In Check

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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. 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.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  There needs to be outlets.

• 0:49Ryan Holiday?

  We're at the end of our ropes, we're exhausted, stressed, and scared. Everyone is. Three years of a pandemic, political dysfunction and polarization, a brutal war in Ukraine, poos and assassinations unfolding all over the globe. Things have never been so hot or intense. Even the actual temperature is getting hotter. Should it surprise us then that a group of mothers in Massachusetts have been organizing small outdoor get-togethers just to scream? Just to shout all their anxieties and fears out into the void? It seems a little crazy, but it's also perfectly sane. We've all been through so much, but even if the last couple years have been totally normal, it doesn't take much to imagine yourself getting a lot of relief from something as cathartic as screaming to top of your lungs. Certainly,

• 1:34Ryan Holiday?

  it's better than shouting at a coworker on Zoom or venting your frustration at your kids or the person who just cut you off in traffic. The point is, the accumulated stress and difficulty of life is like a toxic sludge that needs to be disposed of. We need an outlet for it. Scratch that. As human beings here in 2022, we need outlets, plural. We need ways to channel that energy, that stress, that exhaustion, that existential dread when we wake up, wondering, is this ever going to get better? Like Marcus turning to his journal, or Seneca taking cold plunges. Some even think his brutal plays were a creative outlet. Or Chrysippus going for a long distance run, Epictetus lifting weights, Cato going for a meandering walk around Rome.

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  We need our own version of that simple restorative practice. As we said before, stress is a fact, but being stressed is a choice. And choosing not to find outlets to process and manage that stress, that's on you. Of course, I also suggest you check out our SLATE, your stress challenge that we're doing at Daily Stoic. It's 12 days of Stoic wisdom inspired to help you conquer your anxiety, your worry, your fears, your frustrations, your depression. All the things that Stoics dealt with, that we deal with here in modern life, that Stoic wisdom and Stoic philosophy is designed to help us conquer. You can check it out. It's something I've been working on using myself.

• 2:56Ryan Holiday?

  We've melded in some of the best insights from modern psychiatry and psychology. We've looked at characters from history and literature. We've put together what are a number of invaluable, actionable strategies that will help you manage your stress, get perspective, stop sweating the small stuff, feel some peace, feel good about yourself. And of course, do what you need to do. And there's just 24 hours left to sign up for this challenge. We'd love to have you. Registration will close tonight at midnight. I hope you join us. Sign up at dailystoic.com/stress.

• 3:38Ryan Holiday?

  Keeping the news in check.

• 3:44Ryan Holiday?

  Even the ancient news felt inundated with gossip in news. This week, you will face a barrage like they couldn't have imagined, from texts, calls, emails, to the incessant grind of the 24/7 news machine. Instead of responding to every status update, every urgent call, or the latest trending incendiary news story, take a moment to remember the three ways that the Stoics used to keep their focus on their purpose and duty in the present moment. Number one, step away from the noise. Two, remember that no news can throw you off the purpose of your present choices. Three, don't add something negative or positive to what's being reported. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection

• 4:28Ryan Holiday?

  on the Art of Living by yours truly and my colleague Stephen Hanselman, who I also wrote the Daily Stoic with. You can actually get signed copies of the Daily Stoic Journal in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com, or we've got copies here at the Painted Porch, my bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Always pop up. People ask me to sign them all the time. Anyways, check out the Daily Stoic Journal. I'm on like my fourth year of doing it. You might like it as well. But here's two quotes from Marcus and one from Epictetus to guide you this week. Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good and stop bouncing around. But when you do, keep in mind the other mistake, to be so distracted by getting control that you wear yourself out and lose

• 5:10Ryan Holiday?

  a purpose by which you can direct your thoughts and impulses. That's Meditations 2:7. Epictetus's Discourses 3:8 says, "Whenever disturbing news is delivered to you, bear in mind that no news can be relevant to your reasoned choice. Can anyone break news to you that your assumptions or desires are wrong? No way. But they can tell you someone died. But even so, what is that to you?" And then Marcus really says, Meditations 8:49. He says, "Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report. The report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick, but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions and don't add them to your

• 5:54Ryan Holiday?

  head. This way, nothing can happen to you." Look, I think the number one secret to a good, productive routine and personal happiness is to limit your news consumption. Obviously, I'm biased as an author, but read books. Don't watch the news. Read thoughtful, perennial analysis. Don't follow speculative news reports. Limit your news consumption. And like, honestly, if you do feel like you need the distraction, you need like a palate cleanser, don't pull up CNN. Pull up ESPN. Like, read about sports or something, right? Read celebrity gossip. Don't read the latest divisive piece of news. I'm not saying that it's not important to be informed. Of course, it's important to

• 6:39Ryan Holiday?

  be informed. I would just argue that following the infinite news machine is how one becomes informed. I think, as I've said before, The Great Influenza, a book that I read at the beginning of the pandemic, taught me much more about how to spend the last 15 months than, you know, any breaking news story, because the news stories never really changed anything. It's like, hey, this thing is real. Here's the scientific advice. Take it seriously. Wait for it to be over. Right? The latest report is only adding to what we already know for the most part. So step back. Don't consume so much news. Couple of recommendations on this front. Obviously, one, my book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, is about how the news manipulates you.

• 7:22Ryan Holiday?

  But this great book by Daniel Borsting called The Image that I suggest people read. There's also Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. These are two eye-opening books that will give you a sense of why you should consume as little news as possible and how manipulative it is and how harmful it is. And then the other book, which inspired my book, Trust Me, I'm Lying. If you read The Jungle as a kid in high school or whatever, Eppen Sinclair's expose of the meatpacking industry, then I strongly suggest you read his book, The Brass Check, which is actually an expose of the news industry around the same time. And sadly, almost nothing has changed. I'm not saying that reporters aren't good people. I'm not saying that they don't do an important public service. I'm not saying I read no news.

• 8:07Ryan Holiday?

  I'm just saying, look, the most viral emotion is anger. Should it surprise us that the news perpetually makes us angry? Right? Should it surprise us that news is always breaking but never fully arrives? That they're always speculating? No, it's an enormous beast trying to capture as much attention as possible to then sell that attention to advertisers. You are the product that's being sold when you consume this free news. Got to understand that. Listen to podcasts. Podcasts are great conversations. Even this, like, I'm recording this, but it has no real date on it. It should be relevant forever. So I'm not as incentivized to rile you up the way that your news is. So I think it's interesting.

• 8:50Ryan Holiday?

  Even 2,000 years ago, the Stoics were struggling with it. They'd be appalled at what our information diet is today. So step back, give yourself some space. Don't follow breaking news. Don't let it change who you are. Don't let it rattle your equilibrium. Just keep doing you. Read books, study real wisdom and information. That will make you smarter and able to respond to what's happening in the world and make you a better, more informed citizen.

• 9:19Ryan Holiday?

  It's not that life is short, Seneca says. It's that we waste a lot of it. The practice of Memento Mori, the meditation on death, is one of the most powerful and eye-opening things that there is. You built this Memento Mori calendar for Daily Stoic to illustrate that exact idea, that your life, in the best-case scenario, is 4,000 weeks. Are you going to let those weeks slip by? Or are you going to seize them? The act of unrolling this calendar, putting it on your wall, and every single week, that bubble is filled in. That black mark is marking it off forever. Have something to show, not just for your years,

• 10:02Ryan Holiday?

  but for every single dot that you filled in, that you really lived that week, that you made something of it. You can check it out at dailystoic.com/mmcalendar.