You Must Work Your Hardest at This

"There are lots of things you should be doing today. Your journaling. Your reading. Taking care of your work, of your children or family. Following the instructions of the authorities (to stay inside, to eliminate unnecessary travel, to make sure you have food and supplies on hand). All this is good. Most of it takes work. But the thing you should be working hardest at? Being calm."Ryan describes some great ways to achieve calm and stillness in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***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 @DailyStoic: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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  You must work your hardest at this. There are lots of things you should be doing today: your journaling, your reading, taking care of your work, of your children or family, following the instructions of the authorities, which if you remember is to stay inside, to eliminate unnecessary travel, to make sure you have food and supplies on hand. All of this is good, most of it takes work. But the thing that you should be working hardest at, it's being calm, it's steadying your nerves, it's slowing down those racing thoughts, because emotional and uncontrolled responses only ever make things worse. Remember what Marcus Aurelius said, that we have to concentrate like a Roman, that we have to face the tasks

• 1:13Ryan Holiday?

  in front of us like they are the last thing we are doing with our life. We have to address and solve what's in front of us, action by action. We cannot be crushed by life as a whole, he said. We have to tackle the present moment calmly, rationally, and courageously. Yes, there is a scary pandemic out there. Yes, there is real risk to life and limb, if not to you, then to the more vulnerable parts of the population. And certainly, the economic instability that has already been triggered is no fun. But the only way we'll get through this, the only way you can help yourself and others, is by getting a handle on yourself. No one does well while panicked. In fact, that's a great way to make things

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  worse, to make mistakes or act rashly. So keep calm and carry on. Do your journaling and your reading so you can get your head right. Take a walk in the woods so you can get your head right. Step away from the endless feed of news so you can focus on what matters. Do your work, because the economy and your family depends on it. But work hardest at being calm. We depend on that, too. If you like the podcast that we do here and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  Thank you.