How Are You Still Not Doing This? | How Stoicism Can Give You Inner-Peace In a Crazy World

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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.

• 0:32Ryan Holiday?

  How are you still not doing this?

• 0:36Ryan Holiday?

  Saint Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in Vita Antoni that the reason he did his journaling, his confessing, as the genre was called by the Christians, was that it was a safeguard against sinning. By observing and then writing about his own behavior, he was able to hold himself accountable and make himself better. "Let us each note and write down our actions and impulses of the soul," he wrote, "as though we were to report them to each other. And you may rest assured that from utter shame of becoming known, we shall stop sinning and entertaining sinful thoughts altogether. Just as we would not give ourselves to lust within sight of each other, so if we were to write down our thoughts as if we were

• 1:20Ryan Holiday?

  telling them to each other, we shall so much the more guard ourselves against foul thoughts for shame of being known. Now then, let the written accounts stand for the eyes of our fellow aesthetics, so that blushing at writing the same as if it were actually seen, we may never ponder evil." The Stoics journaled for much the same reason. Seneca said the key was to put the day up for review so that one could see their faults and find a way to mend them. Epictetus said that by reading, writing, and speaking our philosophical journal, we keep the teachings top of mind and are better able to follow them. Marcus, of course, said less on the

• 2:00Ryan Holiday?

  subject of journaling, but left us the greatest lesson of all, his example. When you pick up meditations, what you see is a man confessing a base- Considering and struggling with all of what it means to be human. Marcus said in one of his notes that he should fight to be the person philosophy made you. His journal is the play by play of that fight. It's his battles with his temper, with his urges, with his fears, even with his mortality. It took a lot of work, but from what we know, he won most of the battles. Through his writing and his philosophy, light prevailed over darkness. It's a grand tradition and an inspiring example that each of us is called to follow.

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  The Daily Stoic Journal, which we make and you can buy at any bookstore or on Amazon, is one way to do that. It prompts you to prepare for the day ahead and review the day just past. It gives you big questions to consider and standards to guide yourself towards. A blank notebook can work too. So can a letter or an email to a friend. So can a silent conversation with yourself on a long walk. The point is, you have to do the work. You have to put up the safeguards. You have to actively fight to be the person philosophy wants you to be in the pages of your journal.

• 3:22Ryan Holiday?

  Life is busy. Life is noisy. Life's overwhelming. Life feels like it's moving faster and faster. The world feels like it's spinning faster and faster. It has always been thus. I open Stillness is the Key with the story of Seneca trying to write this letter in his apartment in Rome. And there's all the noise and disruptions below. When Blaise Pascal said that the hardest thing for a human being to do is sit quietly in a room alone. It's true then, it's true now, it's even more true now. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about this concept of stillness, how Stoicism can give you inner peace in a crazy world, how you can get to the place of ataraxia,

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  or freedom from internal or external disruption. And how do you cultivate stillness? And all the Stoics knew this feeling. Cato knew the feeling, Seneca knew it, Marcus realist did it. Stillness of the baths, which the Romans built and enjoyed across the empire for centuries. The quiet of a cavernous room with big, thick stone walls. The thick air of the steam room, the restorative waters of the heated pool, the natural spring, the white noise of water fountain, breathing deep quietly.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  Slowing things down, concentrating, focusing. But how do you not just get that in the bath? How do you cultivate access that wherever you are, wherever you are? That's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. Stillness is the key. That's the title of the book. You can pick that up anywhere books are sold, including signed copies here at the Painted Porch. But in the meantime, let's riff on Stoicism and stillness.

• 5:06Ryan Holiday?

  There's a Zen story about these two aspiring monks who go to visit a wise master. And they said, can you teach us the secret of Zen? And he says, sure. He says, but first I need you to muck the stables, let the animals out, till the garden. He has them do all these farm chores. And so they do it, they do it, the sun is coming up, they spend hours out in the fields working. And then finally they come up to the master and they go, okay, what is the secret to Zen? He just shows them what they've just done. He shows them the farm. The secret to Zen was being present, was doing the work, as they say, chop wood, carry water. I'm here at the beach right now. I watched the sun come up. I went for a run. I played in the sand with my kids. That is, in a sense, Stoic philosophy. That is stillness, ataraxia, as the Stoics talk about, apathia, freedom from being disturbed

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  by the passions, being actually present and there, experiencing life as it happens. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written now 10 books about Stoic philosophy. I even wrote a book about stillness called Stillness is the Key. But I've spoken about this exact concept to everyone from NBA teams to the owners of the NFL, to special forces and sitting senators, because stillness is the place where good work comes from, but also where happiness comes from, where insights and wisdom come from. And to me, when I think about all the happiest moments in my life, that's what they're defined by, moments of stillness and connection and presence. So in today's episode, I want to talk about how we get there, how we get to presence, how we get to stillness. And stillness is a word that comes up in the Stoics over and over and over again.

• 6:32Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius uses it almost 10 times in Meditations. You deserve more of that in your life. That is what life is about. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about stillness, strategies for getting it, strategies for keeping it, and strategies for enjoying it as you have it.

• 6:49Ryan Holiday?

  You have to get up early, even though you don't want to. Marcus Suriel says, "What were you made to stay under the covers and be warm? No, you were put on this planet to do something." Dante says, "Under the blankets is no way to fame." You get up early and you do something. You go for a run. You write in your journal. You sit quietly and watch the sunrise. You meditate. I don't care what you do, but a stoic gets up early. They own the morning because owning the morning is a critical part of owning the day.

• 7:19Ryan Holiday?

  Joseph Heller is at a party with Kurt Vonnegut at the house of this billionaire. And Vonnegut's sort of needling him. And he's like, "You wrote Catch 22, but this guy made more money than you will ever make in your life at work this week." Heller goes, "But I have something he'll never have." And he says, "What's that?" And he says, "The notion that I have enough." I think we are all, deep down, very scared that if we ever say that word, that's the moment we become complacent and the guy behind us passes us. And in a way, it is. Like, if you're running a race and you're like, "Oh, this is fast enough," that's when you get passed. So there is that element of it. But at the same time, you're not allowed to be happy with the fact that you wrote

• 7:58Ryan Holiday?

  one generational defining classic novel that helped millions of people and defined what that experience was for, again, a whole generation. And it's like, maybe I won't ever write a book as good as You Go or obstacle. Maybe they won't sell as many copies. That's not going to prevent me from continuing to write. What I want to do is love the process. Like, I want to love sitting down, starting the next one.

• 8:26Ryan Holiday?

  Why are we in such a hurry? I was just on this walk with my kids on our farm, and I kept saying, "Hurry up. Come on, let's go." And then it struck me, like, what are we hurrying towards? The worst-case scenario, I'm hurrying towards death. And the best-case scenario, I'm just hurrying towards the end of the walk, or the end of their childhood, or the end of this sort of wonderful day we're having. So the Stoics would say, "Why are you in such a hurry?" The present moment is what you have for certain right now. It's enough. Enjoy it, right? Why are you in such a hurry? Why are you... Rushing away from this, why are you rushing through this? Seneca would say, "Death is not in the future, death is now." As you rush through something, he says, "The time that passes belongs to death." So, slow down, be here, like be present for it.

• 9:11Ryan Holiday?

  It's enough, you don't need to rush through right now. Right now is wonderful.

• 9:19Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics talk about poverty being not just a thing about your finances, but about needing, desiring, wishing, hoping, fearing, that you are anything but what you are at this very instant. To become present, to lock in, that's the key to everything to me. That's what stillness is about, and that's really what happiness is too.

• 9:42Ryan Holiday?

  When I'm really busy, when I'm not in my sort of ideal environment, when I'm not at home, when I'm not totally in control of my schedule, I can feel this sort of anxiety creeping up that I have so much I have to do and that I'm running out of time. And one of the practices that I try to do, that I've tried to work on today, is this reminder that what I have in front of me is what I have to be doing. I don't have to do this and my normal things. That's the anxiety or the burden that I sort of wrongly pick up. I go, "I have to do these interviews, I have to do this talk, but I also have to get back to inbox zero, right? I also have to respond to this, I also have to see what these alerts have prompted me to do." And this is untrue. I get emails from people like you all the time, it's quite nice.

• 10:27Ryan Holiday?

  I don't always respond in time. What I do is I mark them and I come back to them when I do have time. And what I find when I reply is people go, "Oh, I never thought you would get back to me." And so, I realized that any anxiety that I felt about not responding fast enough was not from them, this is a projection that I brought to the UK. And so, you find so many of the things that we feel worried about, whether it's being late, or whether it's not being totally caught up, or not being perfect, or not doing everything the way that we think. These are burdens that we voluntarily assumed. And if instead, we can be present, if we can empty the mind, if we can just focus on the task in front of us, we'll do better, we'll be more present, we'll be able to be more grateful, we'll enjoy what we're doing.

• 11:14Ryan Holiday?

  Some people think that Marcus Rilis is depressing. I think this is totally wrong. You can't read meditations and not see all the beautiful observations he makes about the world. He talks about the flecks of foam on a boar's mouth. He even talks about how you look at a piece of bread and it cracks open at the top and nobody quite knows why this happens. He talks about the stalks of grain bending low. Talks about how ripe fruit falls from the tree. He had a poet's eye. He saw all this beauty in the world. And whenever I go on my walks, I go on a walk every single day, that's what I'm looking for. I want to see the little things. I want to see the cat footprints on the hood of a car. I want to see, in New York City, I want to see the steam coming out of the sewer. I want to see the deer running through the fields. I want to see the beauty of the world.

• 11:57Ryan Holiday?

  I want to take a moment and observe it and soak it in. And this washes away the petty concerns and frustrations and bitterness and all the things we accumulate in life. Marcus Rilis talks about washing away the dust of earthly life, going outside, observing nature, looking for the good, the beauty in the mundane. This is a way to do that and you have to do it every single day. It will make your life better, I promise.

• 12:25Ryan Holiday?

  People wake up and what's the first thing they do? They check their text messages, they check their email. They basically make themselves an item on someone else's to-do list. The quality of their day is determined about what so-and-so tweeted, or what message came in, or what the latest breaking piece of news is. And that's no way to live. Marcus Rilis says you have to stop this. You have to stop being jerked around like a puppet. You have to slow down. You want to be in control of your morning. You want to be in control of the inputs that are coming into you. You don't want to be starting the day from behind. You don't want to be starting from this place of freneticness. You want to be in control. So I think it's really important that you start the morning off right, that you start your day off right, and that you don't let things coming in determine the quality of your day, the quality of your life.

• 13:12Ryan Holiday?

  It's funny, the biggest book project I ever sold, I wasn't trying to think of my next project. I wasn't trying to make money. I was actually on a hike with my family, with my kids. I had one in a backpack, my wife was holding the other. We were outside, we were out in nature. I wasn't thinking about work at all. And suddenly, the idea for my next series, actually a series of four books, popped into my head. And I've been working on that now for two years. It was lucrative, but more than that, it was creatively fulfilling and challenging. It's all these things. And that came because I took a few moments of stillness. I decided to go on the hike. I put work aside. And as it happened, work popped into my head. I'm out looking at the sunset on my farm and can hear the frogs and all of this. It's moments like this when you're actually not working, when you're consciously not thinking,

• 13:57Ryan Holiday?

  that sometimes your best work, your best ideas pop into your head. That was true for the Stoics, true for the great artists of all time, and it's true for you and I and normal people. You gotta have time for stillness and reflection and peace. Seneca talks about taking wandering walks, about giving the mind over to relaxation. It's more important than you think. And in fact, it may be where the biggest breakthrough of your life comes from.

• 14:22Ryan Holiday?

  If you want to learn more about Stoic philosophy, totally for free, you can sign up for our Daily Stoic email. It's one free email every morning. The best of Stoic wisdom, dailystoic.com/email.