The Present Moment Is All You’ve Got | A Little Better Every Day

“There’s a lot going on in your life. Good for you. It’s a sign of success. It’s also a burden, a source of stress. You’ve got projects wrapping up. You’ve got projects starting soon. You’ve got a long to-do list, a lot to look forward to, a lot to worry about.”Ryan discusses how concentrating on the moment you are in can help you overcome stress and anxiety, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. This episode is also brought to you by Literati Kids, a subscription book club that sends 5 beautiful children’s books to your door each month, handpicked by experts. Literati Kids has book clubs for children ages 0 to 12, and each club has age-appropriate selections tailored to what your child needs. Every Literati Kids book in your child’s box is hand-picked by experts and guaranteed to spark their curiosity, intellect, and spirit of discovery. Go to literati.com/stoic to get 25% off your first two orders and receive 5 incredible kids books, curated by experts, delivered to your door every month.***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 Daily Stoic: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.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:35Ryan Holiday?

  The present moment is all you've got. There's a lot going on in your life. Good for you. That's a sign of success. It's also a burden, source of stress. You've got projects wrapping up. You've got projects starting soon. You've got a long to-do list, a lot to look forward to, a lot to worry about. So as you feel yourself getting overwhelmed today, pause for a second and think about Marcus Aurelius. Imagine all that he had going on, being the emperor and all. Imagine the plagues and the warfare that kept him far from home. Imagine the big family. Imagine the losses and the tragedies. Imagine all the people that wanted things from him. Imagine all the things he wanted to do. Then remember his advice to himself. "Don't let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you," he said.

• 1:18Ryan Holiday?

  "Don't fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation. Seize the present," he said. "Concentrate on it like a Roman. Don't get distracted. Don't dwell on regret. Don't give in to anxiety. Look at what is in front of you. Look at it with everything that you have." The present moment is the same for everyone, he said, no matter your job, no matter how well or how terribly things have been going. The present is all anyone possesses. To waste it, to let it escape you, to fritter it away with fear or frustration is not only to set yourself up for failure, it is a rejection of a beautiful gift. Focus on the now. Be where you are while you still can.

• 1:59Ryan Holiday?

  A little better every day. The Stoics saw their lives as works in progress. They didn't believe they were born perfect, but they believed that with work and dedication, they could get a little better each day. "There is real delight in this progress," as Epictetus quoted by Way of Socrates. Marcus Aurelius avidly pursued his own education and improvement, eagerly looking for advice from mentors, books, and historical examples. Follow that example this week and see how you can get a little better each day. "We must keep constant watch over ourselves," and Aseneca phrased it, "put each day up for review. Looking back on our day helps us to better understand where we may have fallen short

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  and gives us tangible feedback for how to improve and how to grow. Only what you measure and record can be monitored; only what you put up for reflection can be learned from. I will keep constant watch over myself and most usefully will put each day up for review, for this is what makes evil, that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect only on that which we are about to do, and yet our plans for the future descend from the past." That's Seneca in Moral Letters 83.2. Marcus Aurelius: "From Risticus I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with the rough understanding of the whole, and not to agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something." That's Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1:7. "What does Socrates say?

• 3:26Ryan Holiday?

  Just as one person delights in improving his farm and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day." Epictetus's Discourses 3:5. You know, when I sign copies of the Daily Stoic Journal, which is what this is obviously from, one of the things I, the inscription I've taken to do, I say, "Prepare, review, and reflect." And that's sort of what I think journaling is, what the practice of this sort of Stoic meditation is. It's the preparing for what's to come, but then also reviewing what's happened. And then also taking some time just to think, just to really, really reflect. How's it going? What could you do better? What are the trends you notice? That's what this is about.

• 4:08Ryan Holiday?

  You know, I talked about my practice. You could do the Stoic journaling in the morning, the Stoic journaling in the evening. I tend to, in the morning, reflect a little bit on the day just passed and then set my intentions for the day going forward. So like, there's no right or wrong way to do that. I've just found with kids and all the stuff I have going on, and the fact that I spend so much time writing and thinking anyway, you know, sort of two rounds of journaling doesn't, doesn't work for me, but at this current moment, but it has in the past. And so this idea of setting time, not just to, what do I want? What are my hopes? What are my dreams? That sort of, that sort of part of journaling, but there should also be the review and the reflection. You know, the, the analysis. You know, in the army, you, you go on a mission, they brief you before the mission.

• 4:53Ryan Holiday?

  Then you get back, then they debrief the mission. But then you also have performance reviews throughout the year and then at each posting, right? So it's this sort of process of stepping back and looking at these things from all angles. That's how we get better. That's how we improve. Seneca is saying, we must keep constant watch over ourselves, put ourselves up for review. We have to look back upon our lives. You hear people, and I've been through this my life, you sort of wake up and go, where, who am I? What am I doing? What is this? Obviously, you, that can't, the, the longer that goes on, the harder it's going to be to unravel, to undo. The more likely you've done something that can't be undone. And so I think this sort of little progress of trying to get better every day, a little improvement.

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  Maybe it's just listening to this podcast, maybe it's having a few minutes to talk to a partner in the morning or the evening. Maybe it's reading that you do. I don't know, but the, the point is, we, we get better by taking these small steps, by working on ourselves little by little. And we should remember what Zeno said, you know, he said, well-being is realized by small steps, but it is no small thing. And we underestimate.

• 5:58Ryan Holiday?

  The progress we can make, you know, a little chunk at a time. We want to have these sort of radical epiphanies, these huge breakthroughs. We want to go to therapy and figure it all out. But actually, it's the act of going to therapy, week over week, the routine of it, the little revelations that culminate over time into that, you know, state of wisdom or peace or tranquility. So don't despair that you're not magically transforming. In fact, set your expectations as such that that won't, maybe that won't ever happen. It's the little progress, the little gains. That's how you get better. It's like your hair, you know, you don't, you get a haircut and then you don't notice it's growing day by day. And then one day you look up and you're like, man, I need a haircut. You want to have that in a good way. Man, I'm making a lot of progress. I'm happier. I'm less bothered.

• 6:44Ryan Holiday?

  I'm more content. I'm more in my lane. I'm really chugging away on this project I'm working. That's where the Stoics want you to get. And they want you to learn how to delight in those kinds of improvements as Socrates did and as Epictetus did. So, well, here's to another day of that. I wish you the best. 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.