Just For A Moment, Let’s Be Still

Ryan talks about the importance of stillness, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  Just for a moment, let's be still. It can feel like the world is going faster than ever, breaking news alerts. Work that used to end at the office now bleeds over to our time at home. Email, a phone that never stops buzzing. Everything seems more competitive, from college admissions to the real estate market. How much of this is really new and how much of it is an illusion is not really clear. But in the end, it doesn't matter. We feel overwhelmed. We feel overworked. We feel like we're losing our grip, and we may well be. There's a band called The Head and the Heart, which is a great name considering the lyrics to one of their best songs, is all about using those two things to do something really important.

• 1:08Ryan Holiday?

  They sing, "The world's just spinning a little too fast. If things don't slow down, we might not last. So just for the moment, let's be still." Marcus Aurelius talks about the bustle and the noise of court. Seneca describes a busy, chaotic Rome so vividly, it feels almost indistinguishable from any major modern city. Both of them knew what it was like to have the world spinning just a little too fast, and they both wrote repeatedly about taking a moment here and there, just to be still. "Retreat into yourself," Marcus Aurelius said. "You don't need to head out to the country. You can stop for a few seconds and find peace." "Force your mind to concentrate," Seneca said. "Stop straying, ignore the noise,

• 1:52Ryan Holiday?

  and quiet the bedlam within." They knew the power of stillness, and they actively made it a priority each day. Are you doing the same? Can you take a minute this morning, or wherever you've read this, and just be still? Count to 60. Look out the window. Sit down with a journal, whatever. Just slow down, and slow down soon, or else you might not last.

• 2:17Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. So check it out, dailystoic.com/email.

• 2:35Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks.