They Should Have What They Want

We should think about where we have made our happiness conditional on this or that achievement, on this or that identity which lies outside our control. SPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners 👉 Go to dailystoic.com/spring and enter code DSPOD20 at checkout to get 20% off the Spring Forward Challenge! Challenge yourself to spring forward and become the person you aspire to be. The Spring Forward Challenge starts March 20, 2026. 📔 Grab your own leather bound signed edition of The Daily Stoic! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:14Ryan Holiday?

  They should have what they want. It's probably not going to be what they hope. It's not going to feel as they dreamed. It's not going to make them happy. It's not going to satisfy them. It rarely does, right? Historically, that is. Has any conqueror ever been satisfied? Has any conquest ever not been a little bittersweet? A little underwhelming? How often do any of the things that people dream of and lust for and fight over end up producing happiness? The Stoics knew this, and deep down, we do too, even if we lose sight of it time and time again. So we must step back and let people choose for themselves. We should repeat to ourselves, as Taylor Swift says,

• 0:54Speaker 01

  And they should have what they want. They deserve what they want. I hope they get what they want.

• 1:01Ryan Holiday?

  Because it's not our place to yuck other people's yums. It's not our place to judge. It's not our place to interfere. What we should focus on is where we are lusting and dreaming and fighting for so-called externals. We should think about where we have made our happiness conditional on this or that achievement, on this or that identity which lies outside our control. We should remind ourselves that we have plenty right now, that we can feel good, feel enough, right now.

• 1:41Ryan Holiday?

  Find yourself a Cato. Today's entry from the Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. You can check out the leather edition at dailystoic.com/leather. Or if you just want the cloth-bound, lay-flat version, the standard hardcover, you can pick that up anywhere books are sold and also at store.dailystoic.com, and I'll sign your edition as well. We can remove most sins if we have a witness standing by as we are about to go wrong. The soul should have someone it can respect, by whose example it can make its inner sanctum more inviolable. Happy is the person who can improve others,

• 2:23Ryan Holiday?

  not only when present, but even when in their thoughts. Seneca's Moral Letters, 11:9. Cato the Younger, a Roman politician best known for his self-discipline and his heroic defense of the Republic against Julius Caesar, appears constantly throughout the Stoic literature, which is interesting because he didn't write anything down. He taught no classes. He gave no interviews. It was his bold and brave example that made him such a commonly cited and quoted philosopher. Seneca tells us that we should each have our own Cato, a great and noble person we can allow into our minds and use to guide our actions, even when they're not physically present. The economist Adam Smith had a similar concept,

• 3:08Ryan Holiday?

  which he called the impartial spectator. It doesn't have to be an actual person, just someone who, like Seneca said, can stand by and witness our behavior, someone who can quietly admonish us if we are considering doing something lazy, dishonest, or selfish. And if we do it right and live our lives in such a way, perhaps we too can later serve as someone else's Cato or a spectator when someone else needs it. The line from Adam Smith is in the wonderful book by my friend Russ Roberts, which you should check out. It's called Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, which carried at the painted porch. It's a must read. But it's like, you know, in the cartoons, there's the angel on the shoulder and the devil on the shoulder. And who are you going to listen to?

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  Or if you remember those bracelets, what would Jesus do? Right? The idea is to have that person in your mind, whether it's Cato or Marcus Aurelius or your grandfather or Abraham Lincoln or Harriet Tubman or whoever it is for you. Who is your hero? And what decisions would they make in those situations? When I interviewed Annie Duke for the Leadership Challenge, she was talking about like getting to the outside of a problem. Right? When you're in it, when it's you, you can get tied up in what you want to do or what your impulses say or what's But you want to get to the outside of the problem. And this idea of the spectator or the Cato or the hero, it allows you to think about it from someone else's perspective. So not like, what would you allow yourself to get away with?

• 4:37Ryan Holiday?

  But what would so and so expect of you in this situation? The other version you can think about this is like, what would you do if your kids were watching? If they understood? John Wooden was fond of a poem and the line said, "A little fellow follows you." This is a similar idea. What would you do if your kids were watching? What would you do if anyone was watching? But allowing those standards to hold you to a higher standards than you might otherwise let yourself get away with. But then I think this is really the important part, this last sentence about if we do it right, if we live our lives right, perhaps we can be that way. So remember, Stoicism is about putting your own spin on it. It's about being the ideas. I think getting to a place where you yourself

• 5:21Ryan Holiday?

  have lived your life in such a way, produced work in such a way, made brave or virtuous decisions in such a way that you yourself can serve as a model for other people. Right? So maybe even using that as your own standard. Who do I want to be? Who am I aspiring to be? And what would that person do in this situation? Would they take the shortcut? They phone it in? Would they do the expedient thing? Would they do the short term thing? What would they do? And pushing yourself to be that person, that's to me what Stoicism is about. Again, the example of Cato is so inspiring because for literally hundreds of years, Cato was that example. Cato was that for Thrasia and for Seneca.

• 6:06Ryan Holiday?

  For countless Stoics on down, Cato was the inspiring example. When I had Tom Ricks on the podcast, who's another great book. I highly recommend First Principles, which we also sell in the bookstore. Cato was Washington's Cato. Washington built his whole life around living up to the example of Cato. And he didn't always get there, but he pushed himself to get there. And so, again, Try to find that towering example. That's the first part. And let them guide your behavior. Let them call you, hold you accountable to what you're capable of being. And then strive to be that in such a way that you yourself, for your children, for your colleagues, for your neighbor, for whomever, you yourself can serve as a kind of example for them.

• 6:55Ryan 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.