What Will This Cause? | Ask Daily Stoic

When horrible things happen to us, our instinct is always to ask why me? Why this? Why now? It’s understandable, but it’s also irrelevant and unhelpful, because those questions have no answer. At least no answer that you can do anything about or take any comfort from. Besides, life has a better question. One it is constantly asking us, one that Michael Lewis to his credit has fully embraced: what will this cause? Will it put us out of commission or give us a new mission? Will it cause good things or bad things? And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions as part of a Stoicism virtual discussion. Topics include the best ways to teach Stoic wisdom to kids and why a formal education doesn't necessarily equate to practical intelligence. ✉️ 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.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  What will this cause? In 2021, the author Michael Lewis experienced just about the worst thing that can happen to a parent when his daughter was killed in a car accident. Asked about the grief of losing a child, Lewis said first that it was exhausting. "Every night I go to bed," he said, "I'm thinking about Dixie Lewis, and every morning I wake up, I'm thinking about Dixie Lewis." Then he added, "I can't control that she died. I can't do anything about that. All I can control is what her death causes, and I'm determined that it caused good things, not bad things. That's what I'm focused on, is what does this cause? Like, make sure it doesn't cause more pain.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  See if it causes something else." The Stoics were not unfamiliar with this kind of horrendous grief. As Seneca received news of his exile, he was mourning the loss of his only child. Yet quite beautifully, he channeled this pain into one of his most enduring essays of consolation to Helvia, which he addressed to his mother, who herself was mourning what it would mean to perhaps never see her son again. Marcus Aurelius buried multiple children, could have so easily been consumed by anger and devastation. Instead, he carried on, trying to be of service to the empire and to others. When horrible things happen to us, our instinct is always to ask, why me? Why this? Why now?

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  It's understandable, but it's also irrelevant and unhelpful because those questions have no answer, or at least no answer that can make you do anything or take any comfort from. Besides, life has a better question, one it is constantly asking us, one that Michael Lewis, to his credit, has fully embraced. What will this cause? Will it put us out of commission or give us a new mission? Will it cause good things or bad things? Ultimately, we don't know why awful things happen, and there is so little we can do to prevent them all. All we can choose is what we do after they befall us. All we can influence is what they cause, whether we can find a way to carry on and do good in response to what we have experienced.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  I have a question.

• 3:04Ryan Holiday?

  Go for it. Hi.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Um, hi. Do you have books for children and adolescents that you would recommend that introduce these concepts and make it accessible?

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  So my, my, my oldest is turning six in November. So don't, haven't quite gotten to the adolescent phase of things yet. I'm sure that will challenge my Stoicism in every imaginable way, especially when they, they become teenagers. But, you know, one, one thing in, in March of 2020, as, as suddenly, uh, I wasn't going anywhere, uh, things slowed down, uh, family became, you know, the, the, the, the most important thing. Um, I, I'd had this idea that I was thinking about for a long time, uh, that I didn't quite know how to do. I didn't know if I was ready for, I didn't know if it would work. Um, but I'd been wanting to do a, a kids book or a fable about Marcus Aurelius's journey,

• 3:58Ryan Holiday?

  the, the idea that, um, this kid is selected to become emperor. And how does, how does he prepare for that? How does he get those ivory shoulders? So I did, I actually wrote it and finished it during the pandemic. I've got this book called The Boy Who Would Be King, um, a fable about Marcus Aurelius. Uh, and, uh, here, actually, let me show you this page. Here's his ivory shoulders after he has the dream. Anyways, I'm very proud of this book. It's got a special place in my heart because I got to read it so many times and work on it with my kids. But this is the closest that I have, a sort of an encapsulation of what Stoic philosophy means

• 4:42Ryan Holiday?

  to young people and the idea that that philosophy is something that everyone is suited for and that we have to we have to sort of do the work to become leaders.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Thank you. I think sometimes it's hard enough to be selected to just be a fourth grader.

• 5:00Ryan Holiday?

  Of course. No, it's, I think about how difficult if these last two years have been difficult for us as adults with understanding and experience and, you know, even just language to wrap our heads around all of this. I just, it makes me it sort of overwhelms me to think about how difficult this has been for for anyone who's a kid of any age. But I also, you know, when you when you talk to a grandparent or a parent who lived through the Depression or World War II, you know, they don't, they don't reflect on that as the lost years, right?

• 5:42Ryan Holiday?

  Or as this thing that was so unfair or terrible or painful, even though it was

• 5:51Ryan Holiday?

  awful in so many ways. Like so much of the wisdom and strength and capabilities that they have now came from that formative experience. So there is part of me that's not even part of me, I feel great about who my kids are going to be when they're older. Not in spite of what they've gone through at this young formative age, but because of what they've gone through at this age. I know they can get through anything. So I don't think about it as what they've lost, but although we have to acknowledge what they have been deprived of, but I also think about what they've gained and what they will gain and what we can make sure that they take out of this experience.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Brian, it's Molly again in the back.

• 6:37Ryan Holiday?

  Hi.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  So I'm gonna ask you a nosey question. I just am so in awe of anyone to study philosophy. Could you share a little bit about your education? And what motivated you to study philosophy? And maybe a little bit how you got started after you graduated in that career field?

• 6:56Ryan Holiday?

  So I am not a graduate. I am a college dropout, self-taught student of philosophy. I was introduced to stoicism in college. I really wanted to be a writer. And I really just wanted to be like in the thick of things. I dropped out at about 19. I apprenticed under a great writer named Robert Greene, who wrote The Forty-Eight Laws of Power and The Thirty-Three Strategies of War. He wrote a wonderful book called Mastery. And he has another book I can't recommend enough called The Daily Laws, which is sort of a daily primer on his way of thinking. So I started there as a researcher,

• 7:40Ryan Holiday?

  just someone who loves books, who loves history, loves big ideas. And it's been sort of a self-guided, self-directed course since then. I had a career in marketing in my twenties, where I got to do some cool and some also alarming things and that I pivoted from to be a full-time writer and, you know, practitioner of these ideas that I'm talking about.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Thank you. I have a feeling the twenties was just like yesterday, right?

• 8:18Ryan Holiday?

  Yes. It was sort of a simultaneous path on a lot of, or concurrent path on a lot of this stuff. But yeah, it was a fun ride.