The Most Important Thing | Ask DS

📔 Head over to dailystoic.com/justice to pre-order a copy of Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds.✉️ 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. While on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. Thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  Stoicism is a selfish philosophy. That's what you're supposed to believe, right? That's what all the critics say. And it's not a coincidence that Stoicism is considered self-help and self-improvement. The Stoics did emphasize self-discipline, after all. Yet, a quick textual analysis of Marcus Aurelius obliterates this notion. More than 20 times in meditations, Marcus Aurelius talks about the importance of doing what's right, talks about the right thing. More than 30 times, he talks about the virtue of justice. He's not talking about court cases and the law here. And roughly 80 times, Marcus Aurelius talks about the common good, which he said one ought to serve above all and always. Literally, in so many words,

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

  Stoicism is a philosophy about doing good in the world, about doing what's right, not in your own self-interests, but in the interests of others too. Yet, far too much of the focus of the Stoic conversation is about individualistic struggles, how to manage your temper, how to get over your fear of death, when it was so clearly intended to be about our collective struggle. "The fruit of this life is good character and acts for the common good," Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations. "This is the perfect formula because it captures both sides of the Stoic coin. We must be men and women of integrity, but also men and women of action, putting that integrity to work in the world. The Epicureans retreated to their gardens, but the Stoics held public office.

• 2:13Ryan Holiday?

  They tried to raise their families right. They tried to contribute to their community. They served in the military. Tried cases before the court, helped the vulnerable and misfortunate." They resisted tyranny, many of them dying in opposition to Nero or suffering exile under other emperors. "Just that you do the right thing," says Marcus Aurelius in Meditations. "The rest doesn't matter." The idea of doing what's right, of making a positive contribution to the world. Hey, it's me, Ryan, breaking the fourth wall yet again. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But what I'm talking about in Right Thing Right Now, good values, good character, good deeds, it's this idea. For the last five years, I've been working on this series on the cardinal virtues of Stoicism. I did Courage is Calling, which is courage.

• 2:57Ryan Holiday?

  Discipline is Destiny, that's temperance. And now Right Thing Right Now, which is about justice. The book on wisdom is to come, but in the meantime, I would really love for you to read Right Thing Right Now, which officially comes out on June 11th, 2024. Pre-ordering a book makes a huge difference for authors and for bookstores as they try to get a book off the ground. It helps publishers. It's like the most important thing you can do to support a book is to preorder it. So I sat down with the Daily Stoic team and we came up with a bunch of awesome preorder bonuses that I'm throwing your way. You can get signed numbered first editions. If you order five copies, you can get an original page from the manuscript. I sign it so you can see the book as it's getting made. And then if you want to have dinner with me and a bunch of other fellow Stoics, we're

• 3:41Ryan Holiday?

  going to have a philosophical dinner here at the Painted Porch in the fall. All that is on the landing page. Just go to dailystoic.com/justice. Of course, you can order the book from anywhere and then you can redeem the bonuses there. But if you want some numbered first editions signed by me, you can't get that anywhere else. You can grab those. It's cheaper than on Amazon, by the way. Just head over to dailystoic.com/justice to grab the book. It's coming out in June, but it would mean so much to me if you pre-ordered it now.

• 4:17Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, coming to you from Bastrop, Texas. And my office here is in Bastrop. The bookstore is in Bastrop. My ranch is in Bastrop County. It's where I live. It's where I write. And it's where I do so much of what you listen to and absorb. And I was invited to do a little Q and A down at the Bastrop Public Library, which is right up the street from the bookstore. My mortal enemy, they're giving books away for free over there. I don't know what they're doing. But they were nice enough to ask me to come down and answer a few questions. And so I'm going to bring you some of that in today's episode, talking about how and why we opened the painted

• 5:02Ryan Holiday?

  porch, how I integrate Stoicism into my life in this wonderful little small town, and how I try to balance work, life, and family. Just some stoic questions from some lovely folks. And I believe the event was to raise money for the public library, which is always nice. If you are ever in central Texas, or you're driving through from Houston or College Station, Bastrop's a lovely place to visit, and I think you'll like it. It's got a nice little library. And of course, we've got the bookstore. So I'll bring you today's episode. Enjoy.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  So how and why did you end up in Bastrop?

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  We moved to Austin in about 10 or so years ago, and we lived in East Austin, and we loved it. And then I think we were having a conversation one day, and we said something like, if we're going to live in Texas, we should really live in Texas. And plus, our goat needed a bit more space than East Austin could offer. And so we bought a little ranch out in Bastrop County, and we've been sort of here ever since. So it's funny, because we opened the bookstore in 2021, I think. And so everyone in Bastrop is very, very welcoming. Of course, everyone comes in and says, you know, "Welcome to Bastrop," you know? And it's like, we've been here for a very long time. But no, it's been great. We love it.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Well, tell us a little bit about the Painted Porch and maybe some upcoming or future plans you have with that space.

• 6:31Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was thinking about it. Technically, we're mortal enemies because, you know, you guys give books away for free here, which is insane. I think that's the socialism they're telling me I should be scared about.

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  No, we were sitting at Maxine's one morning, my wife and I, and she, we were looking at 910 and 912 Main Street, which I think had last been maybe a Mexican restaurant.

• 7:03Ryan Holiday?

  And had been vacant for some time. And we had this crazy idea that it could maybe be a bookstore, and that was probably crazy under regular circumstances. And we started construction and got serious about it exactly four years ago, so March of 2020. So, perfect timing, and nothing got in the way. It was sort of like Arrested Development. I think I've made a huge mistake. We thought that quite a bit for the first year or so, but it worked out.

• 7:35Ryan Holiday?

  What it actually was is we needed some, I think, I needed to stop working from home, and we needed more space for all of our books.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  So you bought a place?

• 7:51Ryan Holiday?

  And so, instead of, you know, renting boring office space somewhere on the outskirts of Austin, we just thought, what if we did something cool? And it's been really, really cool.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Good. And how many of you have been to the Painted Porch?

• 8:06Ryan Holiday?

  Well, thank you all very much.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a beautiful space. When I have people visit, that's one of the first places I take them, right? Just to take photos in front of that fireplace.

• 8:13Ryan Holiday?

  That fireplace was inspired, if you've ever been to Ford's Theater in Washington DC, you walk in, you can't actually, you don't spend very much time in the theater. You're there for like two seconds and then they take you to this museum that's attached. And I don't know if you remember, they have a tower of books that goes, it's like a three or four story building, but it goes all the way up and it's a spiral of books only about Lincoln. That's how many books they'd written about Lincoln. And so I thought that, I saw that and I always thought it was cool and I know we wanted something that kind of stood out about it. We want to do something like an art project in the space and so that was, that was the idea. That fireplace is non-functioning. So you would, I don't think ordinarily you would wrap, you're getting into Fahrenheit

• 8:57Ryan Holiday?

  451 territory there, but because it's non-functioning, but it is, it was built up very nicely. We were able to stack books up on it and.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Oh, it's super cool.

• 9:07Ryan Holiday?

  Thank you.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  You've written and spoken about this practice of eritae or virtue and choosing what we do with situations that arise, those situations we find ourselves in. How have you found or been able to practice this philosophy yourself?

• 9:21Ryan Holiday?

  It's funny, I have it, it's behind my desk now. When I was staring out into a very empty bookstore in the depths of the pandemic and we were, I wouldn't say regretting it, but we were, we were wondering how this was going to work out. I wrote this little note to myself. I said, 2020 is a choice will make you a better person or a worse person. And that's kind of how I think the ideas in Stoicism ultimately come down. It's like you are faced with some situation and you don't, you can't necessarily know how it's going to end up. You don't, I didn't know if the bookstore would ever open. I didn't know if it would work out. I didn't know if people would like it. I didn't know,

• 10:06Ryan Holiday?

  you know, the vast majority of the. The road ahead was uncertain, but I did, I could have some influence over how I changed as a result of it for better or for worse. So that's, that, to me, that's when, when the Stoics say like the obstacle is the way, that's what they mean. They don't mean everything is a chance to have more fun, or everything's a chance to improve your career, or your bargaining position. It's, it, I mean, sometimes, you know, um, you know, sometimes there's a comeback, sometimes there's a surprise silver lining, but the, but, but not always, but the real thing that you can always do is, is emerge from it, you know, wiser, more empathetic, more understanding,

• 10:49Ryan Holiday?

  you know, a better sense of what's important or not important. So that, that's kind of how I think about it.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  That's good. One would hope. All right. You have said, in the regiment, there is freedom. So with all your daily reading and writing and podcast recordings and working with the breast checks, how do you practice that self-discipline that allows quality time for Samantha and the boys?

• 11:13Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, one of the reasons I live here instead of in New York City, or Los Angeles, or some other place is like, it's simpler, it's easier, um, everything's close. And so I, we kind of have tried to, I think, you know, if your routine requires immense amounts of discipline and willpower to maintain because everything around you is difficult and frustrating and complicated, you know, you've got to be a superhero just to sort of keep an ordinary amount of, you know, things in the air. So we, that was what made us really excited about this, is, you know, can walk to the dentist, or, you know, is this, uh, the benefits of being in a small town.

• 11:57Ryan Holiday?

  There are downsides, of course, but the benefits of the small town is that, or what I love about this town is it's got pretty much everything you need. So. When I, when I sort of try to set up my days, I, I just try, I try to keep them simple. I try not to get overcommitted and then I try to do the things that are important. And, you know, part of the reason we set up the bookstore and the office and all this stuff was that it just made things easier. I'm not driving into Austin, this thing's on this side of town. And we just kind of, that's kind of our home base. And it's, it's been wonderful. Yeah. And it gets it out of the house. So like when we're there, it's work and school or whatever. And then when we're at home, it's home as opposed to, you

• 12:41Ryan Holiday?

  know, I think boundaries are really important. And the pandemic has created this sort of hybrid work environment and work from home. This is all wonderful, right? But, but it, I think from that, just as discipline can create freedom, freedom creates the opportunity or the necessity of discipline. So if your office says you have to be here from this time to this time, and this is when your lunch break is, and there's someone looking over your shoulder to make sure you're on task, you know, you don't have to be that disciplined. You don't have to have boundaries or systems because they're forced upon you. But when you have freedom, when you're in control, you are required then to have self-discipline.

• 13:25Ryan Holiday?

  You have to impose order on the chaos that is getting to do what you want. And I, I see, you know, employees struggle with that all the time. You know, they think it's wonderful. And it is, but it just, it demands more of you. And so I think part of why we set the things up is just to be able to go, okay, here, when we're at home, we're at home. And when we're working, it's work. As, you know, you can have this sort of endless bleeding. So you're always on your phone and always doing stuff. So that's one of the reasons we sort of set things up that way.