Here’s The Deal | Balance The Books Of Life

We got together with family. We reminded ourselves what was important. We enjoyed the bounties of the Earth. Perhaps when we took the rolls out of the oven we noted, as Marcus Aurelius did in Meditations, the way the bread cracks open on top, a nod to nature’s inadvertence. We gave thanks. And then the next day, what did millions of people do? They rushed out to get a deal on a flat-screen television or crowded into department stores to take advantage of Black Friday deals. Then today, they sat down at their computer or on their phones to spend even more money for Cyber Monday.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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.

• 0:02Ryan 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?

  We got together with family. We reminded ourselves what was important. We enjoyed the bounties of the earth. Perhaps when we took the rolls out of the oven, we noted, as Marcus Aurelius did in meditation, the way that did in meditations, the way the bread cracks open on top, a nod to nature's inadvertence. We gave thanks. And then the next day, what did millions of people do? They rushed out to get a deal on a flat-screen television or crowded into department stores to take advantage of Black Friday deals. And then today, they sat down at their computer or their phones to spend even more money for Cyber Monday. In the Book of Genesis, Abraham is told that he's been a blessing and thus must be a blessing to others. That's the essence of Christianity and Stoicism,

• 1:18Ryan Holiday?

  that the deal that comes with being a person in this world. We've been given a free gift, life and talent and success, and we must give freely in return. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is not filled with lists of items he wants to buy, nor platitudes about gratitude. Instead, he talks actively about helping others, lending a hand, doing his part. The great fortune of his life, Marcus Aurelius says at one point, is not just that he himself has never known serious want, it's that he's been lucky enough to be able to help so many people. The world held up its part of the deal, and he tried to do the same. Which is why, for the fourth year now, we're inviting you to join us in putting energy towards helping people,

• 2:01Ryan Holiday?

  not engaging in hand-to-hand combat over deals at the mall. You enjoyed a day of fullness. You have been blessed in so many ways, from the Thanksgiving meal to the company of family and friends, to the fact that you know where your next meal comes from. But it's important that you realize that not everyone is feeling that way. In fact, many people are experiencing the exact opposite. More than 700 million people around the globe go to bed hungry every night. More than 44 million people in America are food insecure, including 13 million children. This is a tragedy, but it's also an opportunity and an obligation. It is our duty to help others, to serve others, to illustrate those virtues of courage and justice toward and for and through others, to help people from going hungry, to alleviate

• 2:46Ryan Holiday?

  someone's worry and fear, to put food on the table. And we can do this together. Last year, the Daily Stoic community came together with Feeding America and provided over 2.1 million meals. We didn't quite hit our goal of 3 million, but we're keeping that goal this year with the hopes that you can help us get there. I'm personally putting up the first $30,000 with the overall goal of trying to raise 300,000. Every dollar that we raise together provides 10 meals. So if we hit our goal, that'll be 3 million meals. And if you head over to dailystoic.com/feeding, together, we can make a small dent in a big problem. We can prove that we're not just talking about these ideas, but really applying them. So let's do it.

• 3:31Ryan Holiday?

  Rather than let the Black Friday spirit of materialism and selfishness infect us, let's contribute to something bigger than ourselves. Let's be great Stoics today. And look, if you live outside the US, you can check out Action Against Hunger. It's a global humanitarian organization that does the same thing at the global level across nearly 50 countries. So check it out and let's do this together. dailystoic.com/feeding.

• 3:58Ryan Holiday?

  Balance the books of life daily. One of the reasons we journal is as a way of gathering up life's experiences, its insights, its frustrations, its unexpected struggles and triumphs and more. And in all of this, we are making a reckoning of our progress on life's way. Seneca, whose father-in-law was in charge of keeping the books on Rome's granary, liked the metaphor of balancing life's books each day.

• 4:29Ryan Holiday?

  Rather than postpone, our impulse each day should be to bring things as much as possible to completion. Why? Because we never know what tomorrow might bring. Epictetus too would tell his students that the important thing was that they had begun to practice, to learn, to get better. So, give yourself some credit this week for the journey that you're on and reflect on how far you have come and how far you have left to go. And we have three quotes, two from Seneca and one from Epictetus. Seneca says, "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day.

• 5:11Ryan Holiday?

  Life's greatest flaw is that it is always imperfect and a certain portion of it is postponed. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." And that's from Moral Letters 101. And then Seneca, and he's writing this to his father-in-law, he says, "Believe me, it's better to produce the balance sheet of your own life than of the grain market." He says this on the shortness of life. And then Epictetus says, "I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small. And your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things.

• 5:56Ryan Holiday?

  Why then don't you complete the work? If you have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation, what is missing? The work is quite feasible, is the only thing in our power. Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me, and you will see." I was thinking about this idea of keeping life's books with the fact that I just finished my fourth go-around on the Daily Stoke Journal, and I know some of you have been on that path with me as well. So, as I cracked open a fresh one, that was pretty cool. And I'm about to finish my, uh, my first go-around all the way through of my five-year One Line a Day journal.

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  So, I've been doing it every day for five years. And...

• 6:46Ryan Holiday?

  Just to have that finished is like an incredible and cool experience. And to think of the reflection that went into this. And so, you know, when we talk about journaling, it's, it's not just a sort of a cathartic thing. It's not just a moment of stillness in the morning or the afternoon, or whenever you happen to do it. To me, the power of it is that it is recording your progress as you go. When I look at some of the things that I wrote five years ago, when I think about what I was going through five years ago, right?

• 7:27Ryan Holiday?

  I just, I am proud of myself for the work that I have been putting in on myself. There's a great line, it's not in today's entry, but Epictetus says, "Some people delight in improving their farm. Me, I delight in my own improvement day to day." And I think that's what the journal is really capturing, is that day to day improvement, that work that I've been putting in. And listening to this podcast is a little bit of work. Your journaling is a little bit of work. The reading you're doing is a little bit of work. The conversations you're having with a spouse or a friend or in the Daily Stoic Life Group, that's a little bit of progress. And all of this, it might not seem like much as you're doing each individual thing. But as George Washington liked to say,

• 8:12Ryan Holiday?

  "Many mickeys make a muckle," or as Xeno said, "Well-being is realized by small steps, but it's not a small thing." And so, as we chip away at this stuff, as we make a little bit of progress, it might not feel like much today or in the moment, but cumulatively, it is adding up. It is taking you somewhere. And that is not to be underrated.

• 8:37Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, when I did the journal four years ago now, I didn't know where it would go. I didn't know how it would work. I didn't have this kind of daily journaling practice like prompt based. But it's been a wonderful addition to my routine. And I've heard from so many people who've had the same experience. And anyways, it's been wonderful. I hope you can do more than just follow along with the podcast, but you can grab a version of it yourself.