These Legacies Are a Gift | Ask Daily Stoic

Remarkably, Jesus and Seneca lived nearly parallel lives, with many sources suggesting they were born in the same year. Even more striking are the overlaps in their teachings. This Christmas morning, it’s worth reflecting on the shared wisdom of these extraordinary lives. Make 2026 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. No more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You https://join.dailystoic.com/nyny26/ challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge http://dailystoic.com/challenge. Get The Daily Stoic New Year New You https://join.dailystoic.com/nyny26/ & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life |dailystoic.com/life https://dailystoic.com/life/ 🎟️ Come seeRyan Holiday LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/: https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ San Diego, CA - February 5, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1527497619499?aff=oddtdtcreatorPhoenix, AZ - February 27, 2026 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/daily-stoic-live-onstage-with-ryan-holiday-tickets-1830981698549?aff=oddtdtcreator 🎁 This holiday season, give the gift of Daily Stoic Premium | https://dailystoic.supercast.com/gifts/new 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Over 2,000 years ago, one of the world's greatest philosophers was born. He came of age under the Roman Empire and spread a message of kindness and mercy in doing one's duty. He taught millions how to live and how to die over the course of his life and his legacy, how to better themselves and treat their neighbors, too. But eventually, this wisdom grew controversial, a threat to the state, and his death came at the hands of the centurions they sent for him. And yet, even during the very public agony and humiliation of his death, he asked his loved ones and followers to stay strong, to forgive the excesses of an emperor who did not know what he was doing. In those brave final moments, he immortalized himself forever.

• 1:41Ryan Holiday?

  This is the story of Jesus, who people all over the world celebrate today on Christmas. But just as well, this is the story of Seneca. Remarkably, Seneca and Jesus lived nearly parallel lives. Not only that, but they were born, according to many sources, in the same year. No one can confirm for certain the exact birthday for either, but it is indisputable that two of history's greatest philosophers walked the earth at the same time. More incredible is just how much their teachings overlap, and it's worth taking some time on this Christmas morning to consider those similarities. "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." That's Jesus. "Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness." That's Seneca. If someone strikes you on the right cheek,

• 2:26Ryan Holiday?

  then turn to him the other also. That's Jesus. It is a petty and sorry person who will bite back when he is bitten. That's Seneca. We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance, and endurance develops strength of character. That's Jesus. Constant misfortune brings this one blessing to whom it always assails it eventually fortifies. That's Seneca. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? That's Jesus. You look at the pimples of others when you yourself are covered with a mass of sores. That's Seneca. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.

• 3:09Ryan Holiday?

  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. That's Jesus. Two elements must therefore be rooted out once and for all, the fear of future suffering and the recollection of past suffering, since the latter no longer concerns me and the former concerns me not yet. That's Seneca. Ultimately, both these men lived on far beyond their deaths. According to Scripture, Jesus, he would rise from the dead after three days. And Seneca, through his writings, feels as alive to us as he would have to many Romans. So on this Christmas Day, we can simply marvel at this near miracle, that two wise men were alive at the same time and through their sufferings and teachings, a great legacy has been passed down to us.

• 3:54Ryan Holiday?

  Which one of them we choose to rely on most heavily is an individual decision, but that we should do something with their teachings, that's a gift we would all be wise to receive this Christmas. Anyways, Merry Christmas, everyone. I love putting this together, these Christmas messages every year. And it's been my privilege and honor to do this now every Christmas since 2016. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, giving me the platform, for making me better by allowing me to write this to you. I hope to see you all in the Daily Stoic New Year New Year Challenge, which is going to start in just a few days. You can join there at dailystoic.com/challenge. And now I'm going to go be with my family, and I hope you do the same.

• 4:49Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Yesterday was a very crazy day for me. I don't know when you're listening to this, but I'm telling you when I'm recording it. So I flew to Seattle, I guess, the night before, woke up, went for a long run, did about eight miles around Lake Washington there in Seattle, and then I had breakfast and did some research for the book that I'm working on. As I'm getting ready to go do this talk, I see they've got this sauna, like a floating sauna there on the lake. And I've done something like this before in Finland, where you would go in the sauna, and then you're jumping a hole through the ice into the ocean, back and forth, back and forth. And it was funny, because I was going to talk about cold plunges in my talk

• 5:34Ryan Holiday?

  later that night that I was doing in Seattle. So I was like, I didn't want to do it. I was putting it off. And I was trying to make excuses. And I said, you know what? This is going to be awesome. I'm going to do it. So I paid to go in the sauna. It was like 30 bucks, got in the sauna, jumped in the lake, got in the sauna, jumped in the lake, got in the sauna, jumped in the lake. And then I went and did a talk for the folks at Xbox there at the hotel. I was very excited about it. Not as excited as my nine year old, who was finally impressed about one of the audiences I was talking to, did that talk, went for about an hour and a half, then went back to my room, took a little nap, and then headed down to Seattle Town Hall, where I did a talk to many of you lovely people. Maybe you were there. You probably don't need to listen to this episode if you were. I did a talk there about how to make

• 6:17Ryan Holiday?

  2026 your best year yet. Sort of thinking about some of the themes that we're putting into the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge, which by the way, you can sign up for right now at dailystoic.com/challenge. I'm pumped and excited to do that. Thousands of Stoics all over the world are going to be doing it together. I hope you are one of them. But anyways, I did the talk, and then I got to answer some questions, which is what I love to do. And that's what I am bringing you for today's Q and A. If you want to come to one of my talks and ask me some questions, I'm going to be in San Diego and Phoenix as part The same tour, you can grab tickets for that at daily stoic live.com. San Diego is February 5th, Phoenix is February 27th.

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks to the folks at Xbox for having me out and thanks to the folks in Seattle who came out to the talk. It was a beautiful venue. It was like an old church that had these stained glass windows. People sat in pews, just a lovely thing. So I'll bring you some questions from that. And I hope to see you at one of the talks daily stoic live.com. And then most of all, I hope to see you in the daily stoic new year, new year challenge. We're going to be starting January 1st. Let's kick the year off right with some stoic inspired challenges. Daily stoic.com slash challenge. I'll see you in there.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  My question is, I think a lot of people my age millennials, they deal with, you know, anxiety, right? And so, you know, we know about my mental morte or members of death, that best from that bed remorse. And, and, you know, more fatty love of fate, right? So it's like letting the things you can't control, but also thinking about deathbed remorse and thinking of what am I going to think of later?

• 7:58Ryan Holiday?

  And so you're saying that, that thinking about your own death doesn't do anything for your anxiety?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:04Ryan Holiday?

  That's a shock. No, I get it. I totally get it. Anxiety is something that I struggle with. I think we all do. One of the things that this jokes teaches about anxiety that I try to remember

• 8:15Ryan Holiday?

  is that the things aren't causing my anxiety, right? The airport doesn't give me anxiety. Public speaking doesn't give me anxiety. Political events aren't why I'm nervous and frustrated and worrying, right? Those things are objective. They are outside me. I am the source of the anxiety, right? The one thing that all the things that get that, that, that I am anxious about have in common is what? It's me. It's you, right? We're the common variable. And so this is why in a, in a famous passage in meditations, Marx realist goes, I'm not going to escape my anxiety. I have to discard it. I have to realize that I am complicit and involved in it. And that I, I have the ability to choose.

• 9:00Ryan Holiday?

  Now, obviously, look, there's extreme cases that require medication and serious medical interventions. I'm not talking about that. It's just understanding that, hey, this thing is not to blame. It's my opinion, my feelings, my expectations about it that are causing me the anxiety. And that that's one of the ways that I. I can I can deal with my low level anxiety in that capacity. Thank you. Thank you very much.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  My question, thank you so much for introducing me to Stoicism many years ago.

• 9:29Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Really thankful. And my question is, what do you hate or dislike about Stoicism? What would you like to change in Stoicism?

• 9:38Ryan Holiday?

  Sure. I I mean, look, I I don't like people who misuse or misappropriate Stoicism to to like to be an asshole. Right? Like, the the idea that like, OK, I don't control your feelings. That's why I I'm gonna say mean things, or I'm gonna be disrespectful, or whatever. Right? Like, I think there there is this idea that that Stoicism is indifferent or, you know, insensitive on on purpose, because those things don't matter. Like, to me, what Stoicism is saying, hey, I'm not gonna be easily offended. But I understand that a lot of people are offended. And so I do try to be conscientious and kind and considerate.

• 10:22Ryan Holiday?

  And I think there's there is a contingent of people who are trying to misappropriate and misuse Stoicism to, as I said, to to justify being a jerk, right? And and that's, to me, not what it's about at all. The central Stoic virtue is justice and ethics, right? Kindness, compassion, how our actions impact other people, that that really matters.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Ryan, thanks for being here.

• 10:49Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Could you talk a little bit more with a Stoic lens of how do we thread that line between, especially with news and what's going on politically, the difference between being disengaged and being unbothered? Because I feel like we can unplug, but that's irresponsible in some ways.

• 11:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, yeah. So to me, like, what's happening is not OK. What happening, what's happening requires people being involved, people being engaged, people.

• 11:17Ryan Holiday?

  You know, putting their ass on the line is going to require courage and discipline, all these Stoic virtues. I guess the problem is we have confused reading about what's happening and being outraged about what's happening and sharing things on social media about what's happening with doing anything about what's happening, right? And that's really the problem. And so to me, I think, like, let's start small. Let's start where we have impact. Let's get involved. Let's just not confuse being up on all the issues with making a difference for really anyone. Like, we already know what's happening is not okay. Like, we already know why it's happening.

• 12:02Ryan Holiday?

  Hearing more about it is not critical at this point, right? And this isn't true for everyone. Some people are journalists, some people are in government, some people do have different media decks. But for most of us, like, these are basic bedrock, social contract things, constitutional things even. Part of the, I believe, Steve Bannon said that the Trump strategy is muscle velocity, right? The idea is to throw so much stuff at people so fast that they can't even keep up with it, let alone pick what they're going to take a stand about and do something about.

• 12:40Ryan Holiday?

  And I think, understanding that and then adjusting is like the first step in sort of beating some of this stuff back.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  Curious how you manage relationships, family relationships, or lifelong friendships, where their viewpoints are just so fundamentally different from yours, but you care about them so much.

• 13:05Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, it's challenging, of course. I try to- I just, I guess I just try to think like, does this person believe things that are bad? Or are they doing things that are bad? And that's maybe where I would draw the line, right? So if we can have an intellectual discussion about it, if we can disagree, and of course, there's a broad spectrum of, of, you know, I think reasonable things that people can disagree with or disagree about, that's not what we're talking about. But I think we, we, we start to draw the line when someone is sort of actively harming others.

• 13:46Ryan Holiday?

  Again, not just with their opinions, but with the actions that they're, they're taking. But for the most part, you know, there's a, maybe a don't ask, don't tell policy that's, that's helpful these days.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  Your practice of Stoicism seems to involve lots of facing hard things or doing things that scare you. Is there something in the coming year that you're looking to face?

• 14:07Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah. Okay. So my big goal for 2026 is I'm going to declare email bankruptcy and I'm going to mark all the emails in my inbox as read and I'm gonna start over. Now, I know this doesn't seem hard. I ran a marathon last year and that was my challenge, but I've, this is clearly hard because multiple years in a row, I've said I was going to do this and multiple points in 2025, I said I was gonna do this. I was gonna do it, we had a long car ride, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get my laptop up and I'm just gonna press this button and it's gonna, I'm gonna start fresh. And then I just didn't do it. I don't know what I think is in there. And clearly it's not that important because I haven't looked at it in all this time, but that's one of them.

• 14:52Speaker 06

  So Ryan, I've got a question for you in relation to your book, The Obstacle Is The Way. So you talk about not dwelling on certain things in the past, especially events. But there are situations that repeat, like situations where you fall into and you could have learned from it from before. I guess the question to you is, how can you not look at the meaning? How can you not look at things and dwell onto things? Because you need to learn from them. So when do you stop learning and how often do you need to repeat something until you get the right learning? And then at the end of the day, what is the definition of the right learning anyway?

• 15:27Ryan Holiday?

  Well, that's the whole thing right there. Yeah, look, I guess if it's a pattern that is repeating, it's not really in the past. I guess what sometimes we dwell on mistakes that we have made or things that we wish we hadn't done. Sometimes I'll be on one of my walks, as I'm saying, and I'll just be like violently assaulted by a thought of something dumb I said a really long time ago. And you know, what good is kicking myself about? I can't unsay it. I can't unthink it. Sure, I think going, well, why did it happen? And what did it mean? And what am I going to do differently? That's fine. But the problem is when we ruminate and when we get stuck.

• 16:10Ryan Holiday?

  And then when we try to spend energy making something unhappen as opposed to making sure it doesn't happen again, or just making amends for the fact that it did happen, right? That's what I think it's about. So I just try to ask myself, you know, is, can I influence this? Can I change it? And if not, then I've got to accept it and move on.

• 16:36Ryan 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.