It’s Easy To Forget This… But You Can’t. | Watch Over Your Perceptions

“You have so much to do. So much going on. There are only so many rolls of toilet paper left at the store. Only so many jobs available. Only so many kids who get accepted to the Ivy League, only so many spots on the bestseller list. So you fight. You claw. You might even kill to get what you want. What choice do you have?”Ryan explains why life is not a zero-sum game, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, the company that’s reinventing your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Beekeepers Naturals has great products like Propolis Spray and B. LXR. Beekeeper’s Naturals created a whole hive of products packed with immune-loving essentials so you can feel your best all day, every day. As a listener of the Daily Stoic Podcast you can receive 15% off your first order. Just go to beekeepersnaturals.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout to claim this deal.***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.

• 0:03Ryan 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.

• 0:34Ryan Holiday?

  It's easy to forget this, but you can't. You have so much to do, so much going on. There are only so many rolls of toilet paper left at the store, only so many jobs available, only so many kids get accepted to the Ivy League, only so many spots on the bestseller list. So you fight, you claw, you might even kill to get what you want. What choice do you have? "This is a lie we have been believing since time immemorial," Alanis Morissette sings on her new single. "It is why we're in conflict with each other. It's that we believe that life is zero sum. One became two," she sings, "and then everyone was out for themselves. Everyone was pitted against each other. Conflict ruled the realm.

• 1:18Ryan Holiday?

  All of our devotions and temperaments are pulled from different wells. They seem to easily forget we are made of the same cells." We have been struggling with this since the beginning, since the Stoics and beyond. Chrysippus, a competitive athlete, was writing more than 2,000 years ago about what scholars now call the no-shoving rule. "Yes, we're competing with each other," he said, "but we're all on the same team. To cheat, or trip, or push an opponent, to do this is to lose, even if you win." Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome, continually stressed this to himself. "I am a citizen of the world," he said, "we are made from the same material and revert back to the same material." We all have an important role to play.

• 2:03Ryan Holiday?

  This is what Sympathia is about. That's what we can't forget, even as we try to get ahead, even as we try to survive in this crazy messed up world. As different as we all are, we are made of the same cells. As different as our interests and needs are, in the end, we are all aligned. So be good to each other, be humble and kind, be generous. If you fight for anything, fight for justice and fairness. That's what we were put here to do.

• 2:33Ryan Holiday?

  Watch over your perceptions. Every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are filled with the perceptions that arise with them. The Stoics teach us that we must keep a constant watch over this flood, as if we are standing guard to protect something of vital importance. What is it that we are protecting? Our peace of mind, clarity, and freedom, all of which are anchored in our perceptions. Epictetus reminds us that we need to pay attention to what matters and learn how to ignore so many of the relentless provocations that come our way. That's from the Daily Stoic Journal, obviously. And here we have Epictetus telling us, "Keep constant guard over your perceptions,

• 3:18Ryan Holiday?

  for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, your freedom. For what would you sell these things?" Epictetus Discourses. "An important place to begin philosophy is this: A clear perception of one's own ruling principle." That's Epictetus's Discourses as well. "I don't agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life, struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances. The wise person will endure that, but won't choose it, choosing to be at peace rather than at war." Seneca, Moral Letters, 28.

• 4:03Ryan Holiday?

  It's tricky, right? I mean, the Stoics ask us to be active. They ask us to be involved. They ask us to be engaged. And then somehow, they expect us to be at peace, to not be bothered by what's happening in the world. That's the tricky thing, right? Like, you can go off in your cave, right? You can go on your 10-day meditation retreat and get some semblance of peace or stillness. The tricky thing, and this is what I was trying to write in that book as well, the tricky thing is to find peace now, within yourself, while engaged, while fully aware of what's happening in the world.

• 4:44Ryan Holiday?

  What you don't know about, what you tune out, what you pretend doesn't exist, you know, it's easy not to be bothered by. But the key to Stoicism is finding the ability, the strength, to have that peace and stillness despite everything that's happening. I open stillness as the key with the story of Seneca trying to write a letter to Lucilius, and he's in this noisy apartment in Rome. And he's trying to, you know, he's saying, "Look, you know, I didn't choose this. I had to do it." That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicurean said, "Hey, go flee to the gardens." Seneca has to be engaged. He has to live in the city. He has to be involved. But can he find peace within that?

• 5:27Ryan Holiday?

  And he says that you can. You can find peace. You can become, as Marcus Aurelius talked about, the rock that the waves are crashing over, but eventually become still around. And we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions, as Epictetus is saying. It's knowing what to care about and what not to care about. You know, I've had Mark Manson on the podcast before. You know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck is not caring about anything. It's about finding the right things to care about and things not to care about. So that sort of discernment is really essential to managing our emotions and our perceptions, which is the theme in the journal this month.

• 6:08Ryan Holiday?

  You know, as we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we have to, that we're called to have opinions about, to react to, that are vying for our attention. And our ability to stand guard against this, to let the good things in, to keep the bad things out, that's, that's the key. That's the struggle. That's the fight that we're all engaged in. So, you know, even me, obviously, I live out in the country a little bit. I've, I live the life of a writer, which allows me, you know, some shelter from the craziness of, you know, a person who has to commute into a, you know, a major city

• 6:49Ryan Holiday?

  and work in an office with dozens of other people, or hundreds of other people, and TVs blaring, and phone calls in meetings. And yet, even there, even amidst my sort of privileged situation, I have to decide what to let in and what not to let in. You know, what role does the phone play in your life? What role does, you know, your, your colleagues or your partners play in your life? You know, how disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it? How, how, how long are you able to maintain your focus on what matters? Even if nothing's going on, are you, is your mind the enemy of itself? Are you drawing yourself towards here? Are you drifting? Are you daydreaming?

• 7:33Ryan Holiday?

  How to stay focused, how to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing. And so, having a clear perception about our own mind, our own limitations, our own temptations, this is really the key. That's what we're working on here. That's what I want you to think about today and this week. Remember, keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it's no small thing you are protecting. You're protecting your respect, your trustworthiness, your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom.

• 8:06Ryan Holiday?

  And remember, as Marcus Aurelius said, "The fruit of this life is good character and works for the common good." He talks about common good over and over and over again in meditations. That's what this idea of sympathy is about. Zooming out, seeing how we are far more the same than we are different. That's why we make our Sympathy a Challenge coin in the Daily Stoic store. It's a great reminder to put on your desk, carry it in your pocket. I know a lot of people that do that. You can check that out at [email protected].