This Is Why We Don’t Change | Ask Daily Stoic

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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. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks, some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members, or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening, and we hope this is of use to you.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  This is why we don't change. It happens every year, every single year. It doesn't matter how many times it gets brought up, how many reminders, how clear the deadline is. Every year, a flood of people sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New Year Challenge, and they do it on January 2nd and on January 3rd. In fact, those two days are often the biggest signup days of the whole thing, even though the challenge starts and has started for the past seven years on January 1st. Now, you could say better late than never, and of course, we do, although it's a lot of work for Ashley, who works in Daily Stoics

• 1:23Ryan Holiday?

  Customer Service. But this is also a perfect, real-world example of something Marcus Aurelius and Seneca warned us about: procrastination. These people aren't hearing about the challenge for the first time. They wanted to kick the year off right, but like the rest of us, they told themselves the same lie we all do. "I'll do it in the morning," they said. "I'll make sure to sign up after I get through Christmas. I'll remember to do it later." And then, life happens. Distractions pile up.

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  The to-do list gets longer and then we never do it. "You could be good today," Marcus Aurelius writes, "but instead you choose tomorrow." We all do this and we do it for things much more important than New Year's resolutions. It's not because we're lazy or careless. We just tell ourselves we have more time, more time to breathe, to think, to act. Later feels safer, easier, more comfortable than now. "And all fools have that delusion in common," Seneca said. "That's why we're always about to do something, about to sign up for something, about to get serious, but never do.

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  We make lists and resolutions, plans and promises while the clock ticks on and suddenly the moment is gone. The opportunity passes. The challenge starts without us. We never got around to what we always intended to start. And so we stay the same as we ever were." The good news is it's never too late to start. The bad news is that waiting for tomorrow can cost us our best days and eventually our best life. And that's what the Daily Stoic New Year, New Year Challenge is all about. Even signing up for it is itself a version of this idea. If you're interested in doing it, then do it. Choose today instead of tomorrow.

• 3:21Ryan Holiday?

  Show up, no matter how imperfect or inconvenient, because as the Stoics remind us, the only time we truly have is now. The time to move forward with clarity and purpose, it's now. The time to join us in the challenge is now. Not tomorrow, not after Christmas, not on January 2nd, but now. No more wasted time, no more drifting, no more broken resolutions. So do it. Go to DailyStoic.com/challenge, join me and thousands of other Stoics all over the world, doing 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges in a row. It's gonna be awesome. I can't wait to see you in there. Sign up now while it's on your mind, DailyStoic.com/challenge. Don't wait for tomorrow.

• 4:06Ryan Holiday?

  You already know what will happen, or rather, you know what won't happen if you do.

• 4:15Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. It's been a it's been a crazy year. Put out a book, did a speaking tour. See, I was in almost 10 countries, maybe more. Lot of different countries, kids, my son started first grade, started second grade. My other, my other son is in his last year of kindergarten before he has to switch schools, doing some renovations of our house, doubled the size of the bookstore. I've got, I don't know if you can hear that, but that's, I'm almost done with my edits on the wisdom

• 4:56Ryan Holiday?

  book, which I started back in January. I did this cool book with George Raveling. I don't know, it's been a busy year. It's been a good year. I ran myself a little ragged. I'm gonna try to do a little bit less this coming year, try to do things better. That's kind of what my wife and I are thinking about. I was talking about this last week, like, as you go into the new year, what do you want to do differently? How do you want to challenge yourself to be better? And I've been trying to challenge myself at the beginning of every year for the last seven or eight years. We do this Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. Been doing it for seven years now, thousands of Stoics all over the world. Every year, we come up with like 21 Stoic-inspired challenges to kick off the year. So anyways, I'd love to have you join us. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/challenge. But that's not

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  what today's episode is, really. Today's episode is one of the best parts of that challenge, which is that we have these live Q and As. We do three live sessions. We've done them every year. So we have hours and hours of people asking kind of like New Year's resolutions, Stoic-inspired questions, self-improvement questions. We've just been doing this a long time. And I thought I'd bring you some questions from one of those Q and As today. We picked some of our favorites. I think this is from the 2024 edition of the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. I would love to see you in the 2025 edition of the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. Sign up right now at dailystoic.com/challenge. I will see you

• 6:23Ryan Holiday?

  in there. Maybe you can ask me a question and we'll get after it. It starts on January 1st. Don't procrastinate. I'll see you in there. Talk soon. Bye.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  If you could like download one like skill or attribute to this next generation that's coming up, like Matrix style, right? Just plug them in and they have this stability or knowledge or wisdom. What would that be? And I guess the the second part would be like, if you could give that to to parents, what would that be?

• 6:57Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I was I was thinking about this recently. There's this kind of this um, there's this fear among older people now that young people are, you know, very fragile, you know, like that everyone has a mental illness, you know, that sort of everyone has a sort of is aware of this or needs this kind of special treatment. I I don't I don't fully buy that. I think it's wonderful that, you know, people are actually taking care of issues and getting diagnoses for things instead of just self medicating. But I do think that just because you found out that you have this predilection or that predilection, right? Or or there's this problem or this problem, like, life is still life. You still have to figure out

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  a way to do what needs to be done. And what I what I sort of like about Stoicism and what I think it passes to us is this idea of like, look, it is what it is, and then you still have to do this stuff, right? You still you still have to to to do what what nature or duty demands. And so I would love to give people the ability to sort of simultaneously have awareness about their limitations or their circumstances, or, you know, the consequences that it's caused, and then and then be able to go, okay, but that's here, and then you still want to get over here. And so now you have to figure out your own unique way with those strengths, but also, or sorry, with those weaknesses, but also

• 8:25Ryan Holiday?

  with those strengths that allows you to do that thing. Does that make sense?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Well, so we both have seen like a huge spike and uptick in depression, anxiety, definitely like ADHD type diagnoses that pop up. I sit in meetings where we go through every student that has some sort of support that's needed and we go through how we can help them. And I come in from a similar angle to you. I hope that they see that not as something that gets in the way, but something that they get to navigate, right? Navigating through that is going to make them stronger. But you say, I hope they're aware, like my kids are not aware. Like they are totally oblivious sometimes of like basic stuff, you know what I mean? It's tough, it's tough.

• 9:12Ryan Holiday?

  It is, it is. But they're lucky to have you and I appreciate it all.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  I kind of found the daily Stoic during the beginning of the pandemic, which coincided with my own diagnoses, speaking of mental health, of depression and anxiety and something I've been kind of navigating since 2020.

• 9:31Ryan Holiday?

  But sure.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  There are times where I feel like, you know, we always, it comes down to your choice, you know, like all you have at the end is your mind. It sometimes feels like my mind is not trustworthy when I'm having like an anxiety spiral or I'm really in my depression. But that got me thinking about people who maybe experienced that on a grander scale, like the outliers of folks with schizophrenia or, you know,

• 9:56Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  bipolar disorder. And I'm curious what the Stoics would think about that when you, you know, all you have is your reason choice and maybe you don't have that reason choice. Maybe your choice is taken from you. So what are your thoughts on that?

• 10:10Ryan Holiday?

  No, look, obviously, 2000 years ago, even 200 years ago or 20 years ago, our understanding of mental illness and mental health and sort of what was in our control and what isn't in our control was far more limited. So I think the Stoics are somewhat exclusionary or simplistic when they say these things, not intentionally, but just as far as they understood the world, that they didn't have a full picture. But I think you're an interesting example. So it's like you understand that you have depression and you understand. That, and this was going to, I think, Faye's question earlier, which is like, okay, my mind is doing a certain thing right now. Maybe you don't realize it in the very, the very moment that it's happening.

• 10:53Ryan Holiday?

  But after a certain amount of time, it dawns on you, or you're able to get, have some suspicion as to what's happening.

• 11:02Ryan Holiday?

  That is such a, actually fascinating and incredible thing. That like, the mind can be doing a thing, and then some other part of the mind recognizes that the mind is doing an unhealthy thing, or going in an unhealthy direction. Just in the same way that when you're meditating, you, you get a first glimpse of that. When you're having thoughts, and then you're like, well, where are these thoughts coming from? And then you're having thoughts about the thoughts that you're having as you're having them. And so, we don't want to be simplistic, or dismissive, or, uh, you know, um, cruel to people who have things like, you know, more serious mental illnesses. But it, it, to a certain degree, it's the same, it's a similar process, right?

• 11:42Ryan Holiday?

  Is one have an awareness, uh, of the, um, you know, thing that they're doing? And then how does one seek treatment for that thing to the best of their ability? People around them have to treat them differently, um, and there's certain different standards. But like, you know, Kanye West clearly has some sort of mental problem. Does that excuse, um, you know, is he fully responsible for what's happening? No, but does that mean he's not responsible for his terrible antisemitism and racism and the destruction and pain he's caused people? Yeah, he kind of is responsible because he could be treating this, he could be doing things differently, and he's not. Is there also a certain amount of culpability for the people around him, uh, who could be doing something around this?

• 12:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, also. So, I think you raise a good point. It's not as simple as simply, we control our thoughts and that's it. But even when our thoughts are not in our control, we have the ability to seek treatment, to ask for help.

• 12:42Ryan Holiday?

  Or at the very least, when we come back to our senses, we have the ability to apologize, to make amends, right? We, we have the ability to sort of course correct when we go in a direction, direction that we, we didn't mean to go or didn't want to go or shouldn't have gone. Thank you. Yeah, it's a great question.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  How you doing, Ryan?

• 13:02Ryan Holiday?

  Good, good.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  So I love the Daily Dad. I shared your quote, I think from the last Daily Dad with our staff, where you talked about, what if we stopped counting the right answers and started counting the right things kids do?

• 13:15Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  And I think, I think we struggle with that in schools, especially as the kids get older. So my question for you would be, and I shared this story a little bit in a chat, is how do we teach our students and our kids that they do have some control? And the example that I'll use, my son played his first kid pitch game. And the first time he came up, he got a hit. Next time he came up, he walked. And I talked to him a lot about the stuff that you talk about. So we get back home that night, I said, what made you want to swing at bad pitches? He said, my ego. And he was eight years old at the time. And I would just be curious, because I love your work with the Daily Dad. You know, what would you say, what would you

• 14:01Speaker 03

  say to help kids that don't have a mother or father in their life that shows them that they do have control? When you're dealing with kids that come from so much trauma and their ace of score is through the roof, what message would you say to educators? How to help those kids?

• 14:17Ryan Holiday?

  First off, that's so great that your, your son had the awareness to go, that's why I did what I did. I mean, to learn that lesson, you know, as a kid, I mean, it's still going to be so hard, as it is for all of us in life, to not do things out of ego, but to even be aware that that's a factor, warping the decisions or choices that you make. That's just incredibly ahead of the curve, which is, which is awesome. I think your point that like, certain people have been taught certain things, have access to certain things, have been, have had modeled for them, emotional regulation, healthy relationships, etc., and other kids have. It's just such an understated reality of the world that we're living in.

• 14:58Ryan Holiday?

  Certainly athletics, you know, demonstrate this because you take people from totally unequal backgrounds, cultures, lifestyles, families, etc. And then you put them on a field where supposedly everyone is equal and the rules are the same. And then you wonder why there's different outcomes and different ways to respond to different things. To me, that's a microcosm of society as a whole. We we tend to understand it better in sports and then are less forgiving and understanding via in the classroom or, you know, in in in in other parts of life. Or society, but I I think the ability to, I I think what we have to do is model.

• 15:40Ryan Holiday?

  And then we also have to be, even if it's late in that person's life, like not like it is for your son, to be able to go like, hey, why did you do what you did? Right? And why do you think it didn't work out? Right? When when I interviewed this guy Randall Stutman, he was a a leadership, you know, as a leadership expert, we interviewed him in a leadership challenge. And I think the episodes on the podcast as a whole, he was saying something as a leader, like he's like your job. Like when somebody's doing something that doesn't make sense to you, you know, you want to go like, don't do that, or you want to criticize that they did it or hold them accountable for doing it. But he talked about sort of asking them what they think they're doing.

• 16:22Ryan Holiday?

  It's such a powerful question because very often, going back to Socrates, who said, we never do wrong on purpose. We think we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, or we're doing our absolute best. And it's only till someone has the patience and the understanding and the empathy to allow us to see what we're doing from a new way or to understand that we have more power over what we're doing than we think we do. You know, this this can be so eye opening and transformative. And so I think any chance we have to give people access to that, to basically the core of what Stoicism is, it's just a, it's an incredible gift.

• 17:00Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.