How to Make Joy

"Joy is good. Who doesn’t like joy? The question is where does it come from—is it accidental or is it something you pursue? The Stoics would say that it’s neither. To Marcus Aurelius, joy was something you did. It was a process."Ryan talks about making the pursuit of joy part of your life 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 Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: 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. How to Make Joy. Joy is good. Who doesn't like joy? The question is, where does it come from? Is it an accident, or is it something you pursue? The Stoics would say it is neither. To Marcus Aurelius, joy was something you did. It was a process. As he writes, "Joy for humans lies in human actions, human actions,

• 0:51Ryan Holiday?

  kindness to others, contempt for the senses, the interrogation of appearances, observations of nature, and events in nature." By contempt and interrogation, he means not being distracted by false pleasures and passions, not making the mistake of thinking that joy is success or money or sex. No, joy is doing good for others. It's a walk along the river, seeing the small fish darting in the shadows. It's watching a horse being brushed down. It's watching the stalks of grain bend under their own weight, as Marcus noted. Joy is being with your children. Joy is reading a well-written book. This is a simpler definition of joy, of course, but that is also good. It means you can make it and have it any time you

• 1:34Ryan Holiday?

  like, including this morning, including on the days when you get fired or find out that someone you know has passed away, including the times you are stuck in traffic or on an interminable hold with customer service. Joy lies in human actions, actions you can take right now. I think another way to express this joy would just be that word, stillness. And to me, stillness is the key. That joy is the key to a good life, to happiness, to success, to peace, to stability, to steadiness, even in craziness. And so, obviously, that's what I talk about in my book, Stillness is the Key, which debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller list. I think it's the best thing I've ever written, and you can check that out anywhere books are sold. Stillness is the key.