You Still Have Time Pt II

“We talked a while back about one of the most inspiring lessons of Seneca’s life—that’s it’s not too late for anyone. This was a man who lost his twenties to illness, lost close to a decade of his life to exile, and then in old age was forced into a painful retirement which he turned into one of the most productive writing sprints of his life.”Find hope for healing your past in the story of Seneca and a poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 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.

• 0:04Ryan 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 at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  You still have time. We talked about it a while back, that one of the most inspiring lessons from Seneca's life is that it's not too late for anyone. This was a man who lost his twenties to illness, who lost close to a decade of his life to exile, and then in old age was forced into a painful retirement, which he turned into one of the most productive writing sprints of all time. Well, it happens that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a poem about this very idea, that no matter what has happened, no matter who we are, there is still time to become a better person or to do our best work. In fact, this beautiful poem was written when Longfellow himself was quite old and well into the decline that every person experiences as they age,

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  and celebrating the 50th anniversary of his college graduation. "It is not too late," he writes, "ah, nothing is too late, till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles wrote his grand Oedipus; and Simonides bore off the prize of verse from his compereers, when each had numbered more than fourscore years; and Theophasdeus at fourscore and ten had but begun his characters of men; Chaucer at Woodstock with the Nightingales, at sixty wrote the Canterbury tales; Gertrude at Wilmar, toiling to the last, completed Faust when eighty years were past." These are indeed exceptions,

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  but they show how far the Gulf Stream of our youth may flow into the Arctic region of our lives, where little else than life itself survives. The point is, a Stoic doesn't... Give up, a Stoic doesn't resign themselves to lower standards or expect less of themselves. A Stoic doesn't ever really grow old because they refuse to accept that limitation. Instead, they remain active, they push themselves, they keep their minds sharp. No matter how old you are, this attitude would serve you well. There is no time like the present, it is not too late. The Gulf Stream of youth is still strong in you if you choose to let it be.

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  Keep yourself young, don't let yourself harden. It's not too late, nothing is too late if you choose to see it that way. You still have time, so much time. Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. And if you didn't know, I also have another podcast and daily email. Every day I write something at DailyDad.com, which gets delivered to thousands of people all over the world. I record the meditations just like this one on the podcast for free. So if you're a parent, if you know a parent, if you're an expecting parent, I think you'd really like it. It's called Daily Dad, but it has nothing to do with gender. I'm a dad, that's why it's called that. But we'd love to have you over at DailyDad.com and of course, subscribe to the Daily Dad Podcast.