When It’s Not How You Imagined | Seeking Out Shipwrecks

Fortune behaves however she pleases, as Seneca put it. 🎶 Song lyrics: Lost Weekend - Phoebe Bridgers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x3fpZfKwwY&list=RD5x3fpZfKwwY&start_radio=1 📚 Books: The Daily Stoic https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-signed-edition Lives of the Stoics https://store.dailystoic.com/products/lives-of-the-stoics-signed-edition 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️ AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 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.

• 0:00Ryan 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.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  When it's not how you imagined. It wasn't supposed to go this way. This wasn't what you planned. This isn't fair. It happens. The question for the Stoics was, how are you going to react? How are you going to handle disappointment, surprise, or injustice? "I've been known to throw a tantrum," Phoebe Bridgers sings on her new album, "when things are not the way I imagined them." It's actually a great line. Let me just play it real fast.

• 0:55Ryan Holiday?

  That's what most of us do. Like children, we confuse our hopes and expectations with entitlements. We think that yelling or whining, resenting or wishing will make something otherwise. We think that we can undo what happened, that we can start it over or run it again. But that's not how it works, or how it ever will. "We must remember that fortune behaves however she pleases," as Seneca put it. "We have to be flexible and adaptable." And we must learn what Epictetus called "the art of acquiescence." No tantrums, no fighting, just getting to work.

• 1:42Ryan Holiday?

  Seeking out shipwrecks. "I was shipwrecked before I even boarded. The journey showed me this, how much of what we have is unnecessary, and how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it's necessary, never suffering the loss." That's from Seneca's Moral Letters 87. This is an entry in the Daily Stoic. "366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living," from yours truly, Ryan Holiday, with my co-author and translator, Steve Hanselman. You can get the book anywhere books are sold, including signed copies in the Daily Stoic store and our limited edition, leather-bound edition as well.

• 2:24Ryan Holiday?

  Zeno, widely considered to be the founder of the School of Stoicism, was a merchant before he was a philosopher. On a voyage between islands in the Mediterranean, his ship sank along with its cargo. Zeno ended up in Athens. And while visiting a bookstore, he was introduced to the philosophy of Socrates and later, an Athenian philosopher named Kretes. These influences drastically changed the course of his life, leading him to develop the thinking and principles that we now know as Stoicism. And according to the ancient biographer Diogenes, Zeno joked, "Now that I've suffered a shipwreck, I'm on a good journey." Or according to another account, "You've done well, fortune, driving me thus to philosophy." The Stoics weren't being hypocritical when they said

• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  we ought to act with a reverse clause, or that even the most unfortunate events can turn out to be for the best. In fact, the entire philosophy is founded on that idea. You know, I tell this story at greater length in Lives of the Stoics, so I'll read you a chunk of that as well, just because it's one of my favorite stories in all of Stoicism. And I think it's just so fitting. I write, "The story of Stoicism begins fittingly in misfortune. On a fateful day late in the 4th century B.C., the Phoenician merchant Zeno sent sail on the Mediterranean with cargo full of Tyrian purple dye. Zeno's family's trade was in one of the most valuable goods in the ancient world.

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  And as for many entrepreneurs, their business was on the line every day. No one knows what caused the wreck. Was it a storm, pirates, human error? Does it matter? Zeno lost everything, ship and cargo, in a time before insurance and venture capital. It was an irreplaceable fortune. And yet, the unlucky merchant would later rejoice in his loss, claiming, 'I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered a shipwreck, for it was the shipwreck that sent Zeno to Athens and on the path to creating what would become Stoic philosophy.'" Another fun wrinkle about this that I love is that, you know, he ends up in a bookstore. The bookseller is reading the works of Socrates, and this is what sends Zeno down its path. So I think there's a couple of things here.

• 4:35Ryan Holiday?

  Zeno's quote is actually a little bit more about the idea of premeditatio malorum, about preparing for adversity. Maybe Zeno was prepared, maybe he wasn't. Again, that his whole business was on the line, that he lost everything in this shipwreck, maybe suggests that perhaps he wasn't. But the idea that the worst possible thing, the thing you dread, the thing you could not have imagined, the thing you think is the worst stroke of bad luck, turns out to be the pivot point of his entire life. Zeno, think about how many Tyrian dye merchants there would have been in the ancient world. How many of their ships were coming into Athens, week in and week out? And think of how few of them we've even heard of.

• 5:18Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, have you even heard of Tyrian purple? No, you haven't even heard of the country that Zeno's from, right? And so, the irony is that the thing that he probably resented and was angry about and feared, all of this, turns out to be the only reason that we're even talking about him right now. And I think this is a good lesson that, you know, holds true in your own life, right? If you think about the worst things that have happened to you, the things that you dreaded, the things that you wanted, as time has passed, you've seen how they've contributed to who you've become. That's not to say you would have chosen them. That's not to say that they weren't painful. And that's not to say that there wasn't more, in some cases, more downside than upside. But there was upside.

• 6:03Ryan Holiday?

  And in that, we can make true what Zeno said, that we made a great fortune by suffering a shipwreck, that perhaps from heartbreak came the love of your life, or from a financial calamity came, from some great injury, came a wonderful recovery, came a new way of doing things. From the heart attack came an awakening about your health. The worst thing that happened to you can become something good. This is what the idea of the obstacle is the way is really about. And I just love so much that it's literally written into the story of Stoicism, that it is there at the beginning. It is there before the beginning. In fact, it's there causing the beginning. And I think that can be true for all of us as well.

• 6:48Ryan Holiday?

  So, I'm not saying, "I hope your ship wrecks today." I'm just saying, if your ship does wreck, let's turn it into a Zeno-like rising from the ashes.