No One Has The Time For This |14 Choices A Stoic Should Make Every Day

“What would you do if you found out you were diagnosed with a terminal illness?”We’ve all mulled this hypothetical question over at one point or another. Then we go back to our normal lives as if life wasn’t, in fact, terminal for every person ever born, as if we have a lot more time. We treat it as a thought exercise, a philosophical conversation starter and not much more. The Stoics tried to resist that complacency. “You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle chit chat about the weather,” Seneca begins one of his letters, “but I’m not, because who has the time?” “Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you,” Marcus Aurelius said. “Death overshadows you.”Like everyone, Jake cannot escape what fortune has in store for him. But we can help Jake get every last minute of the time he deserves with his wife and family. Last month Jake was accepted into a clinical trial at the UC San Diego Medical Center, but they need financial assistance relocating him to California to receive this care. You can help by donating to his GoFund Me here.---And in today's Daily Stoic video excerpt, Ryan shares his thoughts on 14 Stoic choices. If we consistently make good choices then all will be well. Ryan outline's some of the best Stoic choices that you should make every day.✉️ 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. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:28Ryan Holiday?

  What would you do if you found out you were diagnosed with a terminal illness? We've all mulled this hypothetical question over at one point or another, and then we go back to our normal lives as if life wasn't, in fact, terminal for every person ever born, as if we have a lot more time. We treat it as a thought exercise, a philosophical conversation starter, and not much more. Well, the Stoics tried to resist that complacency. "You were probably thinking I was not going to open this letter with idle chit-chat about the weather," Seneca begins, one of his letters, "but I'm not, because who has the time?" "Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you," Marcus Aurelius said. "Death

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  overshadows you." Jake Seliger has a terminal illness. Earlier this year, Jake learned that he is dying of an SCS tumor. In May, he had surgery that left him without a tongue, only for the cancer to return to his neck and lungs on July 21. He's being treated now at the Mayo Clinic. There's a great GoFundMe to fund that care. I'll link to that in today's show notes, and I'll mention it later. But barring a miracle or massive advancements in science in a very short period of time, Jake has only a very short period of time left. I recently interviewed Jake on the Daily Stoic Podcast, and throughout the conversation, he kept talking about living with the sense that he could and likely will leave life very shortly.

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  It's arrogant for any of us to assume that we have time to ignore the terminal diagnosis that was handed to us at birth. It's arrogant for any of us to assume that we have the luxury to put things off, to leave things unsaid, to wait until later to let people know that we love and appreciate them. The Stoic said that we must always be aware of fortune's habit of behaving as she pleases. We must always keep in mind that we could leave life right now, as Marcus Aurelius writes, that we don't have time to indulge in idle chit chat, to complain about small stuff, to leave things unsaid. We can't take tomorrow for granted. We must do what we can while we can, for whom we can. And it's sad for me to say this because he's a friend. I've known him

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  for many years, but Jake is not going to be able to escape what fortune has in store for him in the short term, hopefully, but definitely not in the long term. But we can help Jake in the meantime. We can do good and be helpful and useful. Actually, he was just accepted to a clinical trial at the UC San Diego Medical Center, but there's some financial assistance needed as they're relocating him to California to receive his care. And you can help by donating to his GoFundMe. I will link to it. I made a donation, but it'd mean a lot to me if you could help too. As a thanks for his amazing episode of the podcast. So I'll link to that in today's show notes, or you can just Google Jake and I'm sure it'll come right up. But wishing him the best. And this was a powerful, this was a powerful episode of the podcast

• 3:25Ryan Holiday?

  that he participated in. I was just shooting him a note about all the nice notes I got from people about it. So if you haven't listened yet, you absolutely should. And wishing Jake not just the best, but the best of the time that he does have. Fight to be the person philosophy wants you to be. Are you fighting for yourself? The Stoics can't make you be or do anything. They can just lay out the formula, but it's ultimately on you to follow it, to step up and actually be it.

• 3:57Ryan Holiday?

  Life is about choices. We choose how we're going to see things. We choose how we're going to think about things. We choose the habits that we're going to practice or not practice. We choose what kind of person we're going to be. Actually, you could argue that the choices we make, the habits we follow, determine what kind of person we're going to be. And Stoicism, I would argue, is really a philosophy about these choices, about how to make better choices. And in practice, that's what it is too. In meditations, we see Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man In the world, talking to himself, working on himself about these choices. Choice to lose his temper or not, the choice to care about this thing or not care about this thing, choosing the right things to value, the right things, focus on the right response in a difficult situation. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written a number of books about Stoic philosophy.

• 4:41Ryan Holiday?

  I've been lucky enough to talk about it to the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. And in today's video, we're going to talk about some of these Stoic choices, some of the most important Stoic practices to follow.

• 4:57Ryan Holiday?

  You have to ask yourself in every moment, in every instance, every inquiry, every opportunity, every thought, Marcus Aurelius says, you have to ask yourself, is this essential? Because most of what we do and say isn't essential. It's superfluous, it's silly, it's ridiculous, it's superficial. It's not something we need to do, and you have to eliminate it. But he says, when you eliminate the inessential, you get the double benefit of doing essential things better. And when we eliminate these things, when we say no to things, when we pair things out, it doesn't feel like much in and of itself, because it isn't, but it adds up in a big way, makes us leaner, it makes us more efficient.

• 5:36Ryan Holiday?

  You think you're not a morning person, but nobody is a morning person, right? Everyone struggles to get out of bed in the morning. Even 2,000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius was having this debate with himself. He goes, but it's so much warmer here under the cupboards. He says, is this what you were put here to do, to huddle under the blankets and stay warm? No, you're not, right? You were put here for bigger and better things than that. He says, you have to get up and do what your nature demands. He says, people who love what they do, they wear themselves down doing it. It's not easy, it's hard, but you've got to push yourself to do it. That discipline to get out of bed in the morning, well, one way to make that easier is to have a little discipline at night. Put yourself in bed, go to sleep, put the phone in the other room, so then you can wake up well rested. Marcus understood that attacking the dawn was more than just what time you wake up. It's the decision to attack the day with vigor, to be excited about it, to tackle what you have to do.

• 6:21Ryan Holiday?

  And when you eliminate the inessential, then you know that you're getting up for a reason to do things that really matter, that move the needle, that are important to you and important to the world.

• 6:33Ryan Holiday?

  Everyone wants to become beautiful. And the Stoics say there's actually a really easy way to do it. You can have it right now. The Stoics say you become beautiful when you make beautiful choices. And I think this is true. When you see someone who is content with themselves, when someone who knows they are getting better, when someone is making positive choices in their life, it radiates from them regardless of what their body looks like, regardless of how old they are, regardless of what genetic gifts they have. If you want to be beautiful, make beautiful choices. Get up, right? Manage your life. Have a good schedule. As we talked about before, have a good media diet. Focus on doing difficult things. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Beauty isn't just physical. It comes from who you are as a human being,

• 7:16Ryan Holiday?

  how you carry yourself, what you think about yourself, what difference you make in the world. If you want to be beautiful, the Stoics say, start right now by making beautiful choices.

• 7:31Ryan Holiday?

  You know the movie Gladiator, one of the greatest movies of all time. I don't know why it didn't hit me until I was rewatching it, but the opening scene in Gladiator, Maximus is standing there. It's cold. You could see the steam coming off the ground. He looks at this branch. A bird lands on it. The wheat bending low under its own weight, to borrow a phrase from Marx and Stoics. It's this beautiful scene, right? You think it's beautiful. And then it zooms out just a little bit and you realize he's on the front. They're about to fight this terrible battle in this nasty, violent place. I love that idea. You think about movies as a metaphor here. You choose the lens. The zoomed in lens, it's beautiful. The zoomed out lens, it's not beautiful. But sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you're too zoomed in and you got to zoom way out and you see the beauty.

• 8:15Ryan Holiday?

  It's all about the lens and the angle of the camera that we decide to look at the world.

• 8:24Ryan Holiday?

  Rouse yourself to action, Seneca says. Shake off the habit of overthinking with hard work. Putting stuff off is easy, right? Seneca says the one thing all fools have in common is that they're getting ready to start. They're doing it later. In meditations, Marx really is talking to himself, says, "You could be good now. Instead, you choose tomorrow." So what is the hard thing you have to do? What is the thing you're putting off? Do it now. Get it out of the way. Cross it off the list. Challenge yourself. Get stronger for having wrestled with it, having crossed it off the list, having done it. Don't wait. Don't say you're warming up to it. Don't say you'll do it after this, after that, when this is finished, when things are easier. It won't be easier. Do it now while it's hard because it's hard.

• 9:07Ryan Holiday?

  We are what we do. That's what habit and virtue is. How do I become more virtuous? Aristotle says. Same way you become a better builder, by building more stuff, by doing the work. Epictetus, in his discourses, he says, "Don't talk about your philosophy. Embody it." Talking about it, journaling about it, that's a form of practice for sure, but it's mostly about making the choices, taking the action. Says, "Our capability, it's confirmed and it grows through the actions that we take." He says, "If you want to do something, if you want to be something, you have to make a habit of it." So that's the essence of all of these choices. You practice them big and small. You choose them over and over and over again until they become part of your muscle memory, they become part of who you are.

• 9:50Ryan Holiday?

  Remember what the Stoics say, that the whole world is a temple of the gods. I mean, look at that sunset, look at this beach. Look at this life. Marx really says, "Just remember, you're lucky to be alive, to be alive in this moment. Even if things are crazy and insane and awful in the world, they're also wonderful because you're getting to experience them." And to take that for granted, to be bitter or jaded or cynical about that, it's to waste this gift you've been given. And there's a reason they call it the present. It is a gift, even if this is not the most wonderful time to be alive. It's the only time in which you are alive. So we focus on what we control, which is our perceptions, our opinion about things.

• 10:33Ryan Holiday?

  That we control, not when and where we are. We try to make the most of it. We try to accept it. We try to be grateful for it. And that's how we find happiness now in this present moment, no matter what's happening in the world.

• 10:48Ryan Holiday?

  It doesn't matter if you're cold or tired, if you're hungry or well-rested. It doesn't matter the situation at all, Marx really say. It's just that you do the right thing, since the rest doesn't matter. That's your job. The Stoics say your job is to do right. That's what the virtue of justice is about. There's no excuses. There's no explanations. The Stoics' virtue was the main thing. That was what we are put here to do. Doesn't matter what other people do or say, Marx really writes to himself in Meditations. My job is to be good. And he meant also to do good, to help other people, to be a force for good in the world, to leave this place better than you found it. That's the ultimate habit. That's the habit that trumps all the other ones. And it's something you have to let guide and inspire all your actions and choices.

• 11:37Ryan Holiday?

  No one can harm you, at least according to the Stoics. They can hurt you. They can say cruel things. They can attack you. They can cut you. They can make you bleed. But to the Stoics, harm was a choice. You decide to see yourself as harmed by it. Remember Eleanor Roosevelt? No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. We choose to feel harmed. You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be, Epictetus said. Marx really says, don't want to be harmed? Don't choose to feel harmed. We control our emotions. We control our opinions. We control the story we tell ourselves about what happened. And that's why the Stoics said you are complicit when you feel harmed, because you choose to see it that way.

• 12:21Ryan Holiday?

  One of his biographers wrote that what was so great about Marx's realist is that his severity was limited solely to himself. One of Lincoln's aides said something similar. He said, you know, Lincoln didn't expect perfection of anyone. He didn't even expect of them the same high standards he had for himself. We have to understand it's called self-discipline for a reason. It's our standards. It's our rules. It's our potential we're trying to live up to. It's not a weapon we bear against others. Our discipline should be limited to ourself, our choices, our actions, our habits, our expectations. And when we see other people falling short of our standards or their standards, we want to be forgiving. We want to be tolerant. We want to be helpful. We want to be encouraging. That's what self-discipline is about.

• 13:07Ryan Holiday?

  I once told my wife that she was frustrating me and she responded with probably the most frustrating thing you can imagine. She said, "I can't make you frustrated." But to the Stoics, this is totally true because we're responsible for our own emotions. Epictetus says, "If you find yourself offended, realize that you are complicit in taking offense." It takes two to tango. But also, as the Stoics say, "Things don't upset us. We choose to be upset about them." It's our opinions that are to blame, not the objective situation. So this is a really important thing to remember. No one can make you angry. They can't make you upset. No one can make you feel anything. That's a choice that you make. You're responsible for your own emotions. And I'm telling you that as much as I'm telling myself that because I forget it all the time.

• 13:50Ryan Holiday?

  We're responsible for our own emotions. Nobody else, no one can make us feel, say, or do anything, least of all frustrated or angry.

• 14:03Ryan Holiday?

  Seneca says that you can't buy more life, but you can acquire fearlessness. You can stop being afraid of death. And when you cease to be afraid of death, when you stop worrying about what looms way off in the future, what you get, what you get is right now. You get the present moment. So the Stoics think about this exercise of memento mori. They meditate on their mortality. They envision their own death. They plan for their own death. They practice for their own death so that it ceases to waste their time, to waste their energy. It ceases to intimidate them. They can give themselves the gift of the present moment, right now. And you can do that. Don't be afraid. Get yourself some fearlessness. Don't worry about death. While you're here, Epicurus says, "Death is not here." And when death is here, he says, "You are not here."

• 14:47Ryan Holiday?

  And so we think about death because it empowers us now, here in life. And that's what memento mori is ultimately about.

• 14:57Ryan Holiday?

  One of the things we have to strive for as Stoics is to have better boundaries. Stoics talk about being self-contained, about not being rattled by what's happening outside, of managing your own crap, of controlling the inner citadel, your own soul, not vomiting your stuff onto other people. That's part of it. But also not allowing other people to vomit all over you. Their problems, their issues, their lack of self-control, the things they want from you. You have to sort of keep up some defenses. You also have to be strong enough, competent enough, self-controlled enough, polite enough to say, "I don't really want to do that. I'm not comfortable with that. I don't like that. I'm not okay with that. Here's what I am willing to do instead." To me, boundaries are really about being a responsible, mature, communicative adult

• 15:40Ryan Holiday?

  who sets the rules of engagement for your own life, for your interactions with other people. And if you can't do that, as they say, a country without borders is not a country. A person without boundaries isn't a person.

• 15:55Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus really writes to himself, he says, "Fight to be the person philosophy wants you to be." And I just love that so much. It's that Stoicism has this ideal for you to be, someone who's resilient, someone who's strong, someone who's virtuous, someone who's kind, who cares about the common good, someone who isn't easily rattled, someone who's committed to bettering themselves. That's what Stoicism wants for you. That's what the Stoics have been writing about for centuries. That's what we do in these videos, in the Daily Stoic email. That's the ideal. But the question is, are you fighting for yourself? Are you fighting to be that thing? Are you striving today to get a little bit closer to that perfect ideal? Are you fighting for yourself? The Stoics can't make you be or do anything.

• 16:39Ryan Holiday?

  They can just lay out the formula, but it's ultimately on you to follow it, to step up and actually be it. That's what I want you to think about today.

• 16:51Ryan Holiday?

  When I wrote The Daily Stoic eight years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would just keep it going. The book was 366 meditations, but I'd write one more every single day and I'd give it away for free as an email. I thought maybe a few people would sign up. Couldn't have even comprehended a future in which three-quarters of a million people would get this email every single day and would for almost a decade. If you want to get the email, if you want to be part of a community that is the largest group of Stoics ever assembled in human history, I'd love for you to join us. You can sign up and get the email totally for free. No spam. You can unsubscribe whenever you want at dailystoic.com/email.