Yes, This is Unfair, Yet... | Keep the Rhythm

"You didn’t cause the pandemic. You might have even been one of the people who was vocal about the dangers early on. Perhaps you didn’t vote for the leaders—worldwide—who have so failed us in preventing it or protecting us. Yet here you are, stuck dealing with the fallout." Ryan explains the importance of doing what is right, even when faced with unfair circumstances, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN, the #1 worldwide VPN. ExpressVPN has super-fast connection speeds and keeps your data safe. No more advertisers selling your info for a quick buck, no more downloads at a snail’s pace. Sign up now at ExpressVPN.com/STOIC and get an extra three months on your one-year package, absolutely free. *** 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. 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.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Yes, this is unfair, but you didn't cause this pandemic. You might have even been one of the people who was vocal about the dangers early on. Perhaps you didn't vote for the leaders worldwide who have so failed us in preventing it or protecting us. Yet here you are, stuck dealing with the fallout. You're healthy. You're unlikely to have health complications from the virus. Your grandparents aren't around anymore. Yet here you are at home, under legal restrictions, prevented from working or living your life as you like. Maybe unlike some businesses, you've kept large cash reserves. Maybe unlike some investors, you didn't over-leverage yourself, and you don't have large debt payments to service,

• 1:19Speaker 01

  which means that on top of this pandemic, which again is not your fault, you're not in a position to be bailed out by hastily constructed government stimulus plans. It's unfair, it's frustrating, but it's reality. The Stoics would say, so what? Whoever promised you fair, whoever promised you that you'd be made whole? The reward for being right, for being prudent in your affairs, Marcus Aurelius said, is not external. "Don't look for the third thing," he said. "Don't look to be looked after first. That's not how this works." You do what's right because it's right. Of whom much is given, much is expected. Remember that. That is what is fair, even when it isn't.

• 2:06Ryan Holiday?

  Keep the rhythm. Marcus Aurelius must have known that as emperor, he was part of a grand and great history. As a philosopher, he also knew that all people are part of a rhythm pulsing through both history and their own lives. He liked to remind himself not to lose that beat. "Return to your philosophy," he would tell himself when he drifted. Don't give in to distractions. In fact, he tried to constantly return to this rhythm. That kind of awareness, paying a special attention, is something he learned from reading Epictetus, who told his students that while none of us can be perfect, we can catch ourselves when we begin to slide, when we drift from where we should be. So, can you feel that rhythm this week?

• 2:51Ryan Holiday?

  Can you connect to it? Can you think of the times when you really were locked into it? Can you do that again? Walk the long gallery of the past, of empires and kingdoms succeeding each other without number. And you can also see the future, for surely it will be exactly the same, unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It's all one, whether we've experienced forty years or forty million. What more is there to see? Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 749. When forced, as it seemed, by circumstances into utter confusion, get a hold of yourself quickly. Don't be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary.

• 3:33Ryan Holiday?

  You'll be able to keep the beat if you are constantly returning to it. It's Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 611. When you let your attention slide for a bit, don't think that you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish. Instead, bear in mind that because of today's mistakes, everything that follows will be necessarily worse. Is it possible to be free from error? Not by any means. But it is possible to be a person always stretching to avoid error, for we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide. This idea of the rhythm, this idea of philosophy being sort of a place that you return to, is It was a really beautiful idea to me, and I think it's something to think about this week.

• 4:19Ryan Holiday?

  You know, the Stoics talked a lot about water, and Marx realist talks about stepping in the same river twice. Oh, that's impossible. But I also think of sort of the rhythm of life. Zeno talks about a smooth flow of life. I think when we're unhappy, when we're distracted, when we're bored, when we're disconnected, when we're detached, it's because we've sort of lost that rhythm. We've stepped out of it. We've gone into an eddy or a, you know, a shallows. And we've lost, you know, the current of that river that should be pulling us along. We've lost the rhythm, right? And so this idea of there being sort of a flow is really important. And so that's why, like, as a writer, I'm kind of like, I'm never not writing. I'm trying to always kind of keep the same routine, keep my attention focused.

• 5:05Ryan Holiday?

  I'm not sort of on, off, on, off. To me, that's, that's really a recipe for being kind of like a hit or miss, right? That's a, that's a recipe for feeling it some days, not feeling it some days, for losing, losing track of where you should be. I kind of prefer to just sort of always be in the rhythm. It's kind of been a weird thing from the pandemic where it's like all the days have blurred into each other, but not in a bad way. It's kind of been in a good way. It just feels like I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm just locked in always, like, I'm just, you know, I'm just showing up, doing what I need to do, and then coming home and doing the other things I need to do. And there's parts of it that are boring, parts of it a little disorienting.

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  You know, I heard a joke, I was listening to Pete Holmes's podcast the other day, and Kumail Nanjiani was, was talking about a movie that he'd seen. And he goes, because this is the pandemic, I either saw it yesterday or four months ago. And, and I think that's right. You sort of lose the perception of time. But, but that's because you're so in the rhythm. Like, I've always thought, like, when you lose track of what day it is, it's usually a sign you're doing something you really like. You're like, man, what day is it? That's because things are going well, or you're just locked in and you're present.

• 6:22Ryan Holiday?

  This idea of the rhythm is really important, but I also want to balance that with what Marcus Aurelius was talking about, which is when you slip, when you mess up, don't like beat the crap out of yourself, just get back to it, right? Like, I do intermittent fasting, right? And on Election Day, we like, we were like, okay, we're gonna gorge ourselves, just, we're gonna stress eat, get this done, watch what happens. But I think in past parts of my life, that sort of deviation from it, it would have really messed me up. It would have been hard to, no, it's, you just come back to it, right? You just adjust, you come back to it. The idea of the rhythm, it's like, okay, so you did have a bad day. Now come back to it, start again fresh, right? Journaling too, what do you do? I used to journal and I stopped, what should I do?

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  Start journaling today, it's not that complicated, right? You can start again now, you can come back to the rhythm. Cause the rhythm is, it's like, it's outside you, it's there, it's always going. It's independent of you and you can tap into that energy anytime you want, grab water from the stream, whatever metaphor or analogy you want to use. So don't be too hard on yourself. At the same time, again, there's a tension always. I think Epictetus's point is, if you let your attention slide, it can be harder than, than it's, certainly, although it's always possible to come back to the rhythm, it's easier just to stay on the beat and never leave it. So that's where habits come from, that's where accountability comes from, that's where consistency comes from.

• 7:50Ryan Holiday?

  Keep yourself in the rhythm, lock into it, that's what we're doing here. I wish you a great week. Stick with your habits, stick with your routine. Let the flow take you. And, and then if you mess up, if you fall off, don't kick yourself, just come right back to it. Return to philosophy, let it guide you, let it teach you. And keep going and I'll see you on the other side.

• 8:17Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, everyone, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It's incredible to think that these episodes have been listened to more than 3 million times. If you could do us a huge favor and just leave a quick review of the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or whatever you're listening to this on, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews help with visibility and help bring Stoicism to even more people. Thanks again, talk soon.