The Earth Is Big And Has Room For Everyone

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

• 0:03Ryan 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  The Earth is big and has room for everyone.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  There is a line in The Odyssey, most recently translated by the wonderful biographer of Seneca, Emily Wilson. Odysseus, still early on in his journey home, is speaking with a king and telling him of his deeds in the Trojan War. The king remarks, "The earth sustains all different kinds of people. Many are cheats and thieves who fashion lies out of thin air." Clearly, this king has been deceived before and knows how to look out for such people. He had a good read on Odysseus and could tell, despite the man's reputation for cunning and cleverness, he was fundamentally a good and honest person. What's interesting, though, is just how similar

• 1:28Speaker 01

  those remarks are to one made by another king, Marcus Aurelius, several hundred years later, in real life. In Meditations, Marcus writes, "When you run up against someone else's shamelessness, ask yourself this: is a world without shamelessness possible? No, then don't ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy or with any other defect. Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members." In both cases, we have essentially the same observation. The world is big and filled with all types of people.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Some are honest, some are not. Some are good, some are shameless. Might it be better if all were the former and none were the latter? Of course, but that's not the case. So instead, we must learn how to distinguish between the two. We must not go around expecting everyone to be perfect or reliable. We must accept that some people, for whatever reason, are destined to fill that undesirable quota of awfulness that the natural balance of order seems to demand. Don't take that personally. Don't be surprised. Don't ask for the impossible. And then, of course, continue to hold yourself to your own high standards, because that's the class that you belong to.

• 3:03Ryan Holiday?

  Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal. It will take time and effort. It won't be free. But by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper, it will ultimately be achievable and life-changing. So take the first step on the path to a calmer and more fulfilling future. Check out "Taming Your Temper: The 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Your Anger." You can just go to dailystoic.com/anger.