The Whiplash is Your Fault

Ryan discusses how much control you have over your response, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorderSign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:05Ryan 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 at dailystoic.com.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  The whiplash is your fault. It felt like things were heading in the right direction, like things were finally getting better, not just right now with the pandemic or the political situation, but on so many other occasions in our lives. When we went through what we thought was the hardest part of a situation and figured that, of course, it would be over soon, that, of course, things would go back to normal, to the way that they used to be. Did that happen? Does that ever happen? No, it does not. James Stockdale was once asked, "Who struggled the most in the famous Hanoi Hilton?" "Oh, that's easy," he said.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  "It was the optimists." Dr. Edith Inger, on the Daily Stoic Podcast with me, talked about a campmate in Auschwitz who was convinced they'd be rescued by Christmas. On that day, when the liberation did not come, her friend died of a broken heart. This situation that we're in right now, it's not our fault. We didn't cause the pandemic. We didn't ask for this miserable period at work. We're not the ones who prescribed six to eight weeks of recovery for the injury that was a freak accident. And nor is it our fault if this drags on longer than predicted or if something else happens on top of what has already occurred.

• 1:51Ryan Holiday?

  But a Stoic doesn't make things worse with optimism, that is, fixate on conditional hopes about things that are outside of our control. Instead, we settle in. We are comfortable with discomfort. We make the most of this moment in front of us. That's a live time or a dead time. We don't complain. We don't fool ourselves with mirages or wishful thinking, because to do otherwise would be to add whiplash and disappointment on top of our trouble. And the last thing we need in times of difficulty is a bowed head and a stopped neck, which prevent us from seeing what's coming next around the corner.

• 2:35Ryan Holiday?

  Just a reminder, my new book Courage is Calling is available for preorder now. It would mean so much to me if you would support it. If you've gotten anything out of this podcast, anything out of the videos, anything out of my other books, anything out of the Daily Stoic email, this would be the time to help support me. Just go to dailystoic.com/preorder. There's a bunch of awesome bonuses you can pick up.