They’ll Never GIVE It To You | 6 Simple Stoic Lessons To Feel More Peace

We like to think that someday, things will be slower, more peaceful. That we’ll get a break. That after the holidays, after this busy season, then we’ll be able to get serious–about that thing we needed to think about, about that exercise we wanted to start doing, about taking that vacation. Once I get away from the city, from the office, then I can relax, we tell ourselves. It’s never going to happen. You are fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself as people have always fooled themselves.---Today, Ryan also shares six Stoic lessons that you can learn and apply to feel more tranquil, free, and at peace. No matter who you are or where you’re from.✉️ 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  They'll never give it to you. We like to think that someday, things will be slower, more peaceful, that we'll get a break, that after the holidays, after this busy season, then we'll be able to get serious about that thing we needed to think about, about that exercise we wanted to start doing, about taking that vacation. "Once I get away from the city, from the office, then I can relax," we tell ourselves. But it's never going to happen. You're fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself, as people have always fooled themselves. The deified Augusta, as Seneca writes in On the Shortness of Life, which you must read, "To whom the gods granted more than to anyone else, never ceased to pray for rest and to seek a respite from public affairs.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  Everything he said always reverted to this theme, his hope for leisure. He used to beguile his labors with this consolation, sweet though false, that one day he would live to please himself." Marcus Aurelius, harried as he was by the affairs of state, tried to stop himself from fantasizing that someday it would all be over. Instead, he wrote in Meditations that the only break he was going to get, the only real peace, it had to come from the inside. It wasn't going to be at a beautiful seaside resort or a few weeks in the country that was going to give him peace. It had to come from the inside. Circumstances are never going to give you what you need. You're going to have to take them. No one is going to give you time to study philosophy. You're going to have to take it.

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  You're going to have to make the time. Externals are never going to restore what is essentially an internal issue. You need that break now, and you must get it by stepping away, not literally, but figuratively. Stop fooling yourself. Stop expecting someone or someplace to restore you. The only person who can do that is you, and the right time for that is not later, but now.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  It's impossible to learn that which you think you already know. That's Epictetus describing, I think, what ego does to us. If you think you already know something, you're prevented from learning. If you think you know, you won't ask questions. If you think you know, you can't get corrected. So actually, all knowledge, all improvement, comes from a place of humility. Socrates is considered wise not because of what he knew, but because of what he knew he didn't know. And the Socratic method is what? It's the asking of questions. So certainty, statements are the antithesis of knowledge. Questions, openness, curiosity, is the way to wisdom.

• 3:11Ryan Holiday?

  There's a great expression that you become like your friends. Show me who you spend time with, the expression goes, and I'll show you who you are. The Stoics have a slightly different tweak on that. They say you become what you give your attention to. So if you watch nothing but polarizing political news, you are going to become a polarizing, politics-obsessed person. If you watch nothing but celebrity gossip, if you spend all your time following influencers on Instagram, you will become like that. But if you immerse yourself in great book, if you look for things that are positive, things that are empowering, that is also what you will become. You become what you pay attention to. You become where you focus. Marx really says, "We are dyed by the color of our thoughts."

• 3:55Ryan Holiday?

  I think we're also dyed by the influences. We are what we eat, what we put in through our eyes and our ears. So what are your influences? What are you taking in that's going to determine who you are? And most of all, I think it will determine the quality of your life.

• 4:15Ryan Holiday?

  The best revenge is to not be like that, the Stoics would say. And if you think about it, yes, people can hurt you, but when you look at those people, who they are, why they do what they do, it doesn't actually feel like they're getting away with anything. They're their own worst enemy. It sucks to be them. So the Stoics say you give up on revenge, you give up on getting even because you already won, you are already better by not being that person. The best revenge, Marcus really says, is to not be like that.

• 4:48Ryan Holiday?

  One of Marcus Aurelius's most famous quotes, this idea that the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way. It seems like this inspiring idea that we meet the obstacles of life, we rise to the challenge, we turn them into opportunities. But you know specifically what kind of obstacles and impediments he's talking about? He's talking about difficult people. He's saying that difficult people are the opportunity to be patient, to be kind, to be generous, to not give up on humanity, to remember the common good, to do good even for someone who is not treating you well. The Stoics realize that we were put here for other people. We have to put up with them, and we also have to do good for and through them. Marcus Aurelius is saying that people will challenge you, they will frustrate you, they will hurt you. That is a fact of life. But it is also a

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  fact that that difficulty and frustration is also an opportunity to be your best self, to be the Stoic you know you can be, and to do good through and with them.

• 5:47Ryan Holiday?

  At the root of all of my problems, when I look back at my life, anxiety, worry, anger, fear, at the root of all of it was strong emotions that didn't end up making the situation any better. All the things I've been angry about, all the things I've been anxious about, all the things I've been worked up about, did it make one fucking shred of difference? No, it didn't. Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations, "The causes of our emotions are often worse than the thing we're worried or emoting about." That anger makes stuff worse, anxiety makes stuff worse. When I look back at my life, I see how these strong- Overwhelming passions, as the Stokes call them, the things that get us worked up, they weren't helping me, they weren't even avoiding the things that I wanted to avoid

• 6:32Ryan Holiday?

  or bringing me the things I wanted them to bring. No, they were just causing me needless distress, needless worry. They were taking me out of the moment and preventing me from having peace, from having any stillness, and from being who I wanted to be.

• 6:50Ryan Holiday?

  Commander James Stockdale is shot down over Vietnam. And as he's parachuting down into death or capture, he actually says to himself, "I'm leaving the world of technology, entering the world of Epictetus." The most fascinating part of Stockdale in this prison camp, where he spends seven years being tortured, near death, is he says to himself that although the optimists in the camp got crushed, the people who thought it'd be over soon, the people who thought it'd be easy, the people that thought rescue was right around the corner, he said, "I unflinchingly accepted the reality of my situation." But he said, "I also knew that if I survived, I was going to behave in such a way and respond to the adversity that I faced in a way that meant this was an event that in retrospect

• 7:35Ryan Holiday?

  I would not trade." And Stockdale is an incredible example of how a man in harrowing, horrible conditions turned it into a platform and an opportunity for great heroism and kindness and resilience and strength.