What’s On a Hill Cannot Be Hidden | Stop Monkeying Around

We should let our light shine…and also let sunshine keep us honest. 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️ AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  What's on a hill cannot be hid. It's been one for hundreds of years, a place that people aspire to, dream of, look up to. They want to move there. They want to be a part of it. They want what it offers. They like what it stands for. America, the city on a hill. That's what John Winthrop first called it in the year 1630. And so for even longer than the 250th anniversary that the United States is celebrating this month, America has been that. And yet, for almost as long, people have totally missed an important part of what that idea, which comes from the Bible, is all about. The full line, which comes from the Sermon on the Mount, is about how a city on a hill cannot be hidden.

• 0:59Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, it's a beacon. It is also public, does not have the cover of darkness, even at night. Both its virtues and its flaws are laid bare for all to see. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius expresses a similar idea about not doing anything that needs to be concealed behind walls or curtains. If you have to hide it, if you need secrecy to protect it, if it depends on no one seeing what you're doing, then maybe it's a sign that you should not be doing it at all. In Right Thing Right Now, I tell the story of a Roman politician who, when offered means of making his house more private, doubled the architect's fee to remove any obstructions so that people could see he had nothing to hide.

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  Whether America is truly a city on a hill or not is up for you to decide. But each of us should try to conduct our lives as if we were being looked at and looked up to. Because we are, by our families, by our friends, by people less fortunate than us, by people who don't like us. We should let our light shine. And yet, also let sunshine keep us honest. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Understand that we don't get to make excuses or exceptions. We are privileged and empowered. Let's act that way.

• 2:24Ryan Holiday?

  Stop monkeying around. Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around. Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible? Take a look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go by now, you could be trying to be more straightforward and kind. It's the same whether you've examined these things for 100 years or only three. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 9:37, expertly translated by the one and only Steve Hanselman, a meditation coming from me. This is 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, The Daily Stoic. You can get anywhere books are sold.

• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  You can also get a leather-bound edition in the Daily Stoic store. Character, Joan Didion would write in one of her best essays, is the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life. And it's the source from which self-respect springs. Marcus Aurelius urged us not to waste time complaining about what we haven't got or how things have worked out. We have to quit monkeying around and be owners of our own lives. Character can be developed, and when it is, self-respect will ensue. But that means starting and getting serious about it. Not later, not after certain questions have been answered or distractions have been dealt with. But now, right now, taking responsibility is the first step. To be without this respect is the worst of all fates.

• 3:53Ryan Holiday?

  As Didion put it in her essay on self-respect, to live without self-respect is to lie awake some night beyond the reach of warm milk, the phenobarbital in the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trust betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. We are all so much better than that. I love in Meditations, you hear Marcus saying stuff like this to himself. Stop monkeying around. How much longer are you going to wait? He says, you're an old man now, and you're still struggling with this. I love the vulnerability there. Like, he's not telling you to stop monkeying around. He's telling himself to stop monkeying around. And by extension, also you.

• 4:37Ryan Holiday?

  But the point is, this is directed at himself. Because we all struggle with it. We all get distracted. We all get complaining and whiny and obnoxious and entitled. But we have to stop. But to stop monkeying around, we have to get serious. We have to take responsibility for our own lives, for our own actions. Yes, things happen in the world. Yes, things are unfair. Yes, things suck. Yes, there are injustices that need to be addressed at large. But you are responsible for your own habits. You're responsible for what time you woke up this morning. You're responsible for the standard you hold yourself to. You are responsible for what you say, what you do. Right? We are responsible for ourselves and our own emotions.

• 5:19Ryan Holiday?

  You can't make me angry, as my wife says to me sometimes. You can't make me frustrated. We are responsible for ourselves. And when we do things where we have abstained from this responsibility, I take no responsibility at all, Trump famously said. This is the most shameless, shameful thing that a person can do. But this is an important Stoic concept, right? The Stoics say, don't take responsibility. And I sometimes contrast Stoicism and Christianity. It's not that they're saying, take responsibility. God says so. Or if you don't take responsibility, you're going to end up in hell. The Stoics are saying, and I think this is what Didion captures so well, is that to not take responsibility

• 6:01Ryan Holiday?

  over the course of a life ultimately is a form of hell. It is a miserable way to live, as she said. It's to be beyond the reach of comforts, the drugs, the sleep, relief. It is a miserable way to live. So take responsibility for your life. Stop blaming others. Own what is in your control. Deal with it. Take it seriously. Do your best. Do good, as we were talking about last week. And you might not always succeed. You might not be rewarded for it. You may well be punished for it. You may not get what you want. But, but, can look yourself in the mirror, can know you did your best, can know you're trying,

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  and you can know that on a long enough timeline, you will be vindicated, and it will work out. Be good, everyone. Take responsibility. Talk to you next time. Hey there, just a heads up. I'm going to be on tour this fall. You can see me in Australia, in New Zealand in October. In August, I'm mixing my months up here. But in August, you can see me in Chicago, in Minneapolis, in Detroit. Then I'll be on the East Coast sometime in November and December. Anyways, grab tickets to that, DailyStoicLive.com. Hope to see you there.