Are You Really Free? | Protect Your Own Good

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Ryan 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?

  Are you really free? When Seneca was an advisor to Nero, he served alongside a secretary. And that secretary owned a slave named Epictetus. Yet between Seneca, who was the richest man in Rome, and this secretary, who was one of the most powerful men in Rome, the aide and the slave, the slave was the most free. How could that possibly be? Seneca himself would say that to be free was to belong to yourself. It is to be in charge of your mind, your will, your thoughts, to be free from pointless obligations, other people's expectations, materialism, the slavery of cravings or aspirations.

• 1:16Ryan Holiday?

  "Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power," Seneca said. Epictetus got a front row seat to Nero slowly buying and trapping Seneca in a gilded cage. And in the end, Seneca couldn't even quit his job without permission. He saw people contorting themselves to get on Nero's good side. He saw all the limitations and constraints that come with money and power. He saw how the chain of jobs that needed to be held for years in order to get ahead narrowed the choices of those who aspired to get ahead. He saw how people were unable to walk away from a job they hated because they were walled in by big houses and fancy titles. And he was horrified by what he saw.

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  It is better to starve to death in a calm and confident state of mind, he would say, than to live anxiously amidst abundance. Freedom is the prize we are working for, Seneca said, not being a slave to anything, not to compulsion, not to chance events. But then he said, show me a man who isn't a slave. One is a slave to money, another to work, another to fear, he was saying, another to whatever everyone else is doing. Another to alcohol, the cigarettes, soda, material possessions, bad habits, followers on social media, anchors on cable news. That's how it goes. And here on the Fourth of July, the celebration of America's Declaration of Independence, before you head off to barbecues or eat hot dogs, you should think about this. Are you free?

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  Do you belong to yourself? Are you in charge of yourself? Do you have yourself in your own power? Or are you held in the captivity of someone or something else? Of work, of money, of your mortgage, of your social media followers, of your anxieties or aspirations? Sober up. You're a slave. Epictetus would know. And that's why he reminds us, no man is free who is not master of himself. And look, I've been thinking a lot about Epictetus and this sort of journey to freedom, because I've been working on this fable about Epictetus. I'm calling it The Girl Who Would Be Free. I know Epictetus historically is male. I decided to make it female because I wanted, I wanted it particularly for young girls

• 3:27Ryan Holiday?

  to be able to have something in the Stoic canon to relate to. But all of that is secondary to this story, this idea of how Epictetus went from being a slave to one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived, to achieving a kind of internal freedom, conquering the empire between his or her ears. And I've been talking a lot about the book on the podcast. I hope you check it out. It's just like my first book, The Boy Who Would Be King, which thousands of people all over the world have loved. If you are a parent, you've got nieces or nephews, you're thinking about becoming a parent, maybe you're a teacher, you want to teach the ideas of Stoicism to someone who's not a big reader, I think this book is for you. I can't wait for you to check it out. And look, if you preorder The Girl Who Would Be Free, it's out next week.

• 4:11Ryan Holiday?

  You can get the ebook and audiobook for free. If you buy a signed copy, you can get The Boy Who Would Be King for free. If you order an unsigned copy, I'll even give you The Boy Who Would Be King for 50% off. So we've got a bunch of awesome bonuses. Check that out. Go over to dailystoic.com/girl.

• 4:26Ryan Holiday?

  The Girl Who Would Be Free, I'm really proud of this book. I hope you enjoy your 4th of July, but I hope you're after that real freedom, which has nothing to do with government, nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with where you live, as Epictetus shows us in his life, in his struggle through real slavery, finding an internal freedom. That's what this book is about, and I can't wait for you to read it. The Girl Who Would Be Free, it's out next week, but you can preorder it now and get a bunch of awesome bonuses at dailystoic.com/girl.

• 4:57Ryan Holiday?

  Protect Your Own Good. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. Musonius Rufus, one of Epictetus's teachers, taught that human beings are all born with

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  an innate goodness, or as he put it, "with an inclination to virtue." It's our choices that decide whether that goodness comes out or not. We're not bad people, essentially, though we might sometimes do bad things. The purpose of Stoicism, then, is to remind us of that goodness and to help us work hard to protect it. So spend some time this week writing about the choices you can make, the actions you can take to do just that. And this is from the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Journaling, on the Art of Living, which I use myself every morning. I love the little prompts. Here is Epictetus's Discourses, who, as you know, Epictetus was Musonius Rufus's

• 6:22Ryan Holiday?

  student. "Protect your own good in all that you do, and as concerns everything else, take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it. If you don't, you'll be unlucky, prone to failure, hindered, and stymied." That's Discourses 4:3. And then Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, Marcus then influenced by Epictetus, so Musonius.

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  Teaches Stoicism to Epictetus, whose writings then survive and make their way to Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius, as it happens, is introduced to Stoicism through Junius Rusticus, who loans him his copy of Epictetus. "Dig deep within yourself," Marcus writes in Meditation 759. "For there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow. You will keep digging." I guess what the Stoics are doing here is really pushing back on this notion of original sin, that we're toxic, broken, horrible people, that human nature is something to be feared. You know, there is a darkness in us, but there's also incredible good. And I think the Stoics are talking about what side of you are you gonna nurture?

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  What side is gonna come out? What side are you gonna look for? What side are you gonna reveal? And Musonius and Epictetus and Marcus are all tested in incredible ways. Musonius is exiled three times, perhaps four. Epictetus experiences the incredible injustice of slavery. Marcus Aurelius is given absolute power. And as they say, power reveals. But I think also adversity reveals. And in both Musonius and Epictetus's case, adversity revealed a goodness, an unbreakable goodness, a commitment, a tenacity, a perseverance,

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  an unswerving belief in these principles that we're talking about now. And in Marcus Aurelius, he wasn't challenged the same way, although life did challenge him with loss and grief and pain and sickness, but it also challenged him with a great bounty of good fortune. And that too tested his character. It tested whether there really was goodness inside of him and what side of him he was going to reveal. So as you go out into the world this week, think about who you really are underneath. Think about what kind of character you've been cultivating. Let's show people who we are and who we can be and what we actually believe. As Marcus says, let's not waste time arguing what a good

• 8:53Ryan Holiday?

  man should be. Let's be one. Let's be the best we can for ourselves, for our family, for our world. And I'll talk to you soon.

• 9:03Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Just go to dailystoic.com/email. So check it out.