Your Mind Is Not Your Friend

How would you describe someone who lies to you? Who riles you up? Who makes you anxious and afraid? Who questions whether you’re good enough? Who has preposterous blindspots and disturbing biases? Who prods you to suspect the worst of others? Who tricks you into doing things you’ll regret? Who encourages your worst impulses? But this is what our mind does to us on a daily basis!✉️ 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  "Your mind is not your friend." How would you describe someone who lies to you, who riles you up, who makes you anxious and afraid, who questions whether you're good enough, who has preposterous blind spots and disturbing biases, who prods you to suspect the worst of others, who tricks you into doing things you'll regret, who encourages your worst impulses? And yet, this is what our mind does to us on a daily basis. "Your mind is not your friend," the national sayings. "It takes you by the hand, and it leaves you nowhere." And they're not wrong. As much faith as the Stoics had in our ruling reason, they were quite skeptical, even suspicious, of our mind. That's why Epictetus talked about "putting every impression to the test." That's what Marcus Aurelius was doing in his meditations,

• 1:15Ryan Holiday?

  working through his thoughts, having a kind of debate with himself about things he was sometimes inclined to think but knew might be wrong. And this is what we must do. Our mind can be a partner and a friend, sure, but we have to be of two minds about it. Our mind can be a source of strength and support, but it's also not the most reliable or trustworthy of friends. We have to understand, accommodate, and adapt to this reality, make our decisions, and think our thoughts accordingly.