Which Way To Forgiveness? | Stoic Advice For Living Longer And Happier

It’s a story as old as it gets. Marcus Aurelius felt it when Cassius attempted his coup. Maybe he felt it with his step brother Lucius Verus. Epictetus, waking up to find his house broken into, his shrine desecrated. Imagine the feeling of Rutilius Rufus, learning that he’d been found guilty of trumped up charges by his peers back in Rome (this story in in Lives of the Stoics). Marcus Aurelius would say that the best revenge for these kinds of things was to not be like that, to not be like the people who had done such a thing. He’s right, but that doesn’t change that we’re still hurt. “Which way to forgiveness?” Tom Petty sings in “It’s Time To Move On.” It’d be wonderful if this was a destination we could head towards, somewhere that allows us to discharge the anger or resentment or grief we feel.-On this episode of the Daily Stoic Ryan remind us that health is wealth. Taking care of yourself is important. What good can you do in this world if you feel like shit all the time? Or if you lack the physical and moral strength—or in George’s case, even the basic mobility—to be of good to anyone? We are on this planet for a short amount of time. But if we practice bad habits, if we let our urges run wild, we will surely shorten that time. That’s not Stoic, that’s stupid.✉️ 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, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. On Tuesdays, we take a closer look at these Stoic ideas, how we can apply them in our actual lives. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy.

• 0:25Ryan Holiday?

  Which way to forgiveness? It wasn't great, it was heartbreaking. They lied to us, they stole from us, they betrayed the faith and confidence we had in them. We thought better of people, and then people showed us who they are. It's a story as old as it gets. Marcus Aurelius felt it when Cassius attempted his coup. Maybe he felt it with his stepbrother Lucius Verus. Epictetus waking up to find his house broken into, his shrine desecrated. Imagine the feelings of Brutilius, learning that he'd been found guilty of trumped-up charges by his peers back in Rome. Marcus Aurelius would say that the best revenge for these things was to not be like that, to not be like the people who had done such a thing. He's right, but that doesn't change that we're still hurt. Which way to forgiveness?

• 1:09Ryan Holiday?

  Tom Petty sings, "It's time to move on." It'd be wonderful if this was a destination that we could head towards, somewhere that allows us to discharge the anger, resentment, or grief we feel. But there isn't. It's not a light switch. It's instead work that we have to do. The comedian Pete Holmes, there's a great Daily Stoic episode with him from a while back. He's talked about how whenever he thinks of his parents, he tries to say to himself, "I forgive them." It's not a magical incantation, but it's part of the work, part of the healing. We can imagine Rosticus in exile, trying not to be consumed by bitterness, trying to remember that the people who did this to him were human, were flawed, were suffering their own consequences for choosing to be this way. We can imagine Marcus Aurelius

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  trying to practice clemency for his enemies. Perhaps he even read Seneca's essay on this very topic. But the point is, forgiveness is hard work. It doesn't come immediately or easily, but it's the only thing that will heal us, the only way that we can keep going in life.

• 2:23Ryan Holiday?

  The point of philosophy is to challenge you. It's to make you uncomfortable. It's to fix the illnesses of the soul of the mind. So I embrace that opportunity. I do the practice willingly. I take the reps and I get better for it and ultimately happier for it.

• 2:40Ryan Holiday?

  Zeno lived into his 70s. Cleanthes was 100 when he died. Epictetus lived till he was 85. Marcus Aurelius lived almost till he was 60, even though he had a number of very serious health concerns. You look at the lives of the Stoics, it's pretty remarkable how long they lived, especially in a time when people didn't typically do that. So what was their secret, right? What did they figure out? I think their philosophy had something to do with it. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've not only written all these books about Stoic philosophy, I've been lucky enough to talk about it with the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. In today's episode, we want to talk about that. I try to practice good habits in my life. It's interesting to think a lot of what the Stoics have as practice,

• 3:22Ryan Holiday?

  discipline, managing stress, managing extreme emotions, a lot of these things have the byproduct of helping us not just live a long time, but thrive in the course of our life. So that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. Stoic strategies for living well, for longevity, strategies for dealing with getting the most out of these fragile, strange, unique bodies we've all been given.

• 3:48Ryan Holiday?

  We want to seek out little challenges in life, activities, practices that force you to push against the limitations, where your body's telling you, where your mind's telling you, no, you're done, you can't go any further. You realize that that's not fully the truth. Your mind starts to wander when you meditate and you can pull it back. You're practicing that control. You get in the cold plunge and your body tells you, you gotta get out. It's too freezing and you realize you push through and actually you come out feeling invigorated or better. So you develop these practices. The Stoics say we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. That's what we're cultivating when we seek out challenges, whether it's a cold plunge, whether it's a run, whether it's meditation, whether it's just cranking the shower knob. You cultivate a practice that helps you define who you are.

• 4:33Ryan Holiday?

  Your point of the sort of marginal decade, what do you want that last year of your life to look like? And of course, I think people are going to want mobility. One of the ones you talk a lot about is, do you want to go skiing? Do you want to be able to keep exercising? Do you want to be able to go for your nightly walk? But the big one is probably going to be, can you pick up your grandchildren? And it's not just going to be, can you pick up your grandchildren? And that's the physical component. But do your grandchildren want to come visit you? Right? And so that's where the emotional side of it comes right back around. You cannot escape those decisions as we're thinking about longevity and living a healthy life.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why it's so important to frame it up as physical. We haven't talked about the cognitive, but assume there's a cognitive piece and then the emotional piece. It's not sufficient to wait until you're in your marginal decade to do something about it.

• 5:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  In other words, you can't get to the marginal decade, completely out of shape and say, okay, now I want to make sure I can play 18 holes of golf in my mid 80s. If in your 60s, you couldn't do it either.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  Yes.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Like, this is a glider that is falling and you have to be able to make sure you start with enough physiologic headroom to make that work. And the other point, and this is where I think it's, especially for someone like me, such a wake up call several years ago was, you can't have this fantasy that, well, I don't have time with my kids today because I'm so busy, but I'll make up for it with my grandkids. And it's like, really? What in the world makes you think your kids are going to want to be around you, let alone have their kids be around you when you were a raging piece of shit? In other words, this is the exercise equivalent of what you have to do today to make sure you have that life tomorrow. In that sense, it's a perfect parallel

• 6:23Speaker 01

  between the steps you have to take physically and cognitively to ensure a high enough physiologic headroom in your marginal decade. You have to have a high enough relational headroom as well.

• 6:38Ryan Holiday?

  I'm not saying that every single problem in your life can be solved by going for a walk. I'm just saying there's almost no problem in your life that can be made worse by going for a walk. And you may well solve your problem, even if just because going for the walk calms you down or distracts you. But look, I would just say, whatever you're dealing with, whatever you're upset about, whatever you're worried about, whatever is vexing your mind or racing through it, go for a walk, put the body in motion, let the mind relax for a minute. You'll be amazed at what might happen. And look, the very worst thing that can happen is that you got outside, you saw the sunrise or the sunset, you saw the clouds, you saw the stars. It doesn't matter. You got outside, you got active, you're better for that. And I think it will probably make a difference, whatever you're dealing with.

• 7:21Ryan Holiday?

  But see, I've been thinking about that because part of life is pushing through when you don't want to do something and when it doesn't feel like it's coming, right? You have to like develop this sort of tenacity, this stick-to-it-ness. You know, you have these days where the resistance is telling you, don't do it. And you have to push through. And then you have these other days where you're sick, or you're tired, or you're just not 100%. What is the line between you're pushing through for the right reasons, or you're not doing it for the right reasons?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Can I give you a dumber example? Not being able to tell someone you need to get up and pee. Because like, I'm thinking about something else, I have to pee, I'm all of a sudden suboptimal. And what, am I embarrassed that I'm human? Like, we've been sitting here for two hours, may I get up and use the restroom real quick? Like, that's a harder thing for me to do. Being sick, I kind of am a little more clear on it now, like, I've sort of figured that stuff out. But, I mean, I remember I went to a Workaholics Anonymous meeting once. Everyone was late. By like 40 minutes, everyone rushed in and we all got in trouble because it was a lot of sort of successful people and, you know, where I live. And everyone was like, hey, love your work. And they're like, you can't say that here. You know, that's like saying, you're so entertaining when you drink, right?

• 8:34Speaker 02

  And one woman's bottom line was, I will get up and go to the bathroom when I need to pee. And I used to, I used to sit at my computer and think I had achieved something because I had to pee. Like, I would kind of like see how far I It was like edging or something. I could, I wanted to see how far I could take it. It was like, why? I'm thinking about something else, which means I'm not 100% focused on this, which means this has nothing to do about the, with the work. This is some like self depriving, masochistic, false sense of pain and gain.

• 9:01Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  That is not yielding the best work. It took me a long time like on Rogan to go, hey, can I get up and pee? We've been here for four and a half hours. It'd be weird if I didn't have to pee.

• 9:09Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  But then I would find myself getting less interesting, less entertaining, less funny. Cause I was just like, ah, do I ask? Do I not ask?

• 9:15Ryan Holiday?

  And who are you impressing? They don't throw you like a parade for having help.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  No one gives you a check at the end. It was like, you went four hours and didn't pee. And it's like, do you have a UTI? Are you okay? Like you shouldn't, if you're taking care of your health, you should need to.

• 9:31Ryan Holiday?

  Nobody is more unhappy than the person who's never gone through adversity, Seneca says. He said, because they'd never been permitted to prove themselves. That's something I try to remind myself when stuff gets hard. When I run into a bunch of obstacles in a row, when it doesn't turn out the way that I want it to go. I'm going, hey, this is an opportunity. This is a chance for me to practice the virtues. That's what the Stoics say. The obstacle is the way. It's a chance to practice virtue, to practice excellence. But more importantly, it's a chance for me to prove myself, if only to myself. Yes, of course, I would have liked it to go the way that I wanted it. And I might feel a little unhappy that it's not that way. But I'd be more unhappy if I never got this chance, if I didn't get this practice, if I didn't get these reps with things not being the way that I wanted them to be. So I embrace that opportunity. I do the practice willingly.

• 10:15Ryan Holiday?

  I take the rep and I get better for it and ultimately happier for it.

• 10:23Ryan Holiday?

  There's a lot of people that have won a lot of championships, a lot of people that have made a lot of money, had what seems like a glamorous, wonderful life. For how many of those people did it do for them what they thought it would do for them? And then there is, you could argue a rarer feat, which is the person who is great at what they do and has enough, or and feels good about themselves, or and is a good person. That's the spot right there. That's the man, that's the woman, that's the person right there. And which one of those are you aiming at? Or are you unthinkingly going Steve Jobs, greatest, most famous CEO of all? Time, that's who I'm modeling my life after. And you're not asking, what was it like to be Steve Jobs? Would I be happy living in that guy's brain, body, house?

• 11:06Ryan Holiday?

  You can't just think, oh, I'm sure it's a nice fancy house. You have to go, is this what I want? Is this what I'm meant for? Is it even possible to be a happy or good person at that level? Living that way, having made those choices? No judgment on him specifically, I'm just saying.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  If you bring up the Steve Jobs or whoever it's gonna be, and you say, yeah, what's their house like? Well, you gotta, I don't wanna be like them. Great for the aspiration, but whoever that is chasing that, make sure that you're asking, what's my house look like? How am I different than Steve Jobs? Where do he and I differ a little bit? Where, I mean, if I'm trying to mimic him, we know that, that never happens. I mean, you can't mimic anybody, even if you try the exact same words, make the exact same moves, it's a different time, it's a different meeting, it's a different choice. But I know, I've got some friends that do that too, that are going after to be some, just like someone, or try to imitate. And they are completely blind along the way to who they are, to what they feel, to what matters to them, to...

• 12:05Speaker 03

  They're so objectively chasing something that they want to be, that they never really subjectively go, oh, yeah, who am I? What am I doing? What do I like? What do I give a shit about? And I think what we're saying is that the two don't have to contradict each other.

• 12:26Ryan Holiday?

  Instead of talking about happiness, Aristotle uses this word, eudaimonia, which basically means human flourishing, which I think is a better way of thinking about happiness. Happiness isn't exuberance, it's not excitement, it's not getting everything you want. I think it's a deeper place. It's when you're realizing the potential that you have as a human being in all your forms. And so if we can think then of happiness as that, the byproduct of doing all the things right in your life, wanting the right things, living the right way, prioritizing the right things, doing the right thing. Happiness is the byproduct of that. I think it's a better way to think about it. Viktor Frankl talks about how happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued.

• 13:11Ryan Holiday?

  It's not a thing you get as a reward here. It's actually the day-to-day-ness of living and acting rightly, or for the Stoics, living and acting with virtue.

• 13:26Ryan Holiday?

  There's a story about Marcus Rivas leaving the palace and a friend stops him and says, "Marcus, where are you going?" And he says, "I'm off to see Sextus the philosopher to learn that which I do not yet know." This was his interest in what other people had to say. This was his interest in experts. During the depths of the Antonine Plague, right, going back to Antoninus and the ability to defer and listen to experts, the first thing Marcus does is appoint one of Rome's great medical minds, his doctor, Galen, to be in charge of the response. He doesn't think he knows everything. He doesn't let politics get in the way. He tries to listen to the people who know what they're talking about.

• 14:07Ryan Holiday?

  In Book Five, Marcus Rivas talks about the proper role of philosophy in life. He says, "It's not as your instructor." He says, "It's as a kind of medicine, an ointment." He describes this sort of ancient remedy for this eye illness where they would crack an egg on you or something like that. But that aside, what I think his general point he actually is taking from Epictetus, who said, "You shouldn't leave my philosophy class feeling good. You should feel like you just came out of the hospital. It's because you weren't well when you entered." The point of philosophy is to challenge you. It's to make you uncomfortable. It's to fix the illnesses of the soul of the mind. Even though there are passages of meditations that are soothing and reassuring, a lot of them are jarring. A lot of them make you uncomfortable. A lot of them really make you think, or a lot of them maybe you instinctively disagree with. But that's the point. Philosophy is

• 14:52Ryan Holiday?

  not supposed to be your instructor. It's supposed to be a kind of medicine.

• 15:00Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics talk about hard winter training. Epictetus says this. He says, "You must undergo a hard winter training. Exposing yourself, getting out, getting uncomfortable on purpose, is preparation for the inevitability of discomfort and difficulty in the future." And the Stoics practiced this. They put themselves out there. They take the cold plunge. They would wear a thin coat. They abstained unnecessary luxuries. They wanted to toughen themselves up for the inevitability of what life had in store. And so if it's cold, step out there, enjoy it. Jump into the snow. Turn the cold knob in the shower. Step out there. Get outside your comfort zone. It's toughening you up, making you better, putting you in a better position to be more resilient and strong in the future.

• 15:44Ryan Holiday?

  Rouse yourself to action, Seneca says. Shake off the habit of overthinking with hard work. Seneca says the one thing all fools have in common is that they're getting ready to start. They're doing it later. In meditations, Marcus Rivas talking to himself says, you could be good now. Instead, you choose tomorrow. So what is the hard thing you have to do? What is the thing you're putting off? Do it now. Get it out of the way. Cross it off the list. Challenge yourself. Get stronger for having wrestled with it, having crossed it off the list, having done it. Don't wait. Don't say you're warming up to it. Don't say you'll do it after this, after that, when this is finished, when things are easier. It won't be easier. Do it now while it's hard because it's hard.

• 16:24Ryan Holiday?

  I want to do something hard every single day that can give me a win. So I swim every day. I either swim, run, or I get in a cold plunge. Seneca's line was, we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. There are days when I don't want to do this. There are days when it's pretty ugly, but I do it every day. And what you're building is the muscle of pushing through when it's hard, when it doesn't feel like it's going to pay off, when you're not sure where the finish line is, when you've got a long, dark tunnel to make it to the other side of, or a deep hole to dig yourself out of. If you've built the muscle that goes, I do hard things. I think this is why endurance sports and CEOs tend to be so intertwined. It's like you're building the muscle of doing hard things, right?

• 17:08Ryan Holiday?

  Treating the body rigorously so it's not disobedient to the mind.

• 17:15Ryan Holiday?

  I'm looking here at this cemetery in New Orleans. Obviously, every single person in it died. Eventually, death happened to them. But Seneca wants us to remember that death was happening to them always. All 61, or 80, or 90, or 17 of the years that they were alive, they died every second, every minute, and then eventually that stopped happening. So to me, that's a transformational, life-changing, mind-blowing way to think about life. Not that death is something in the future that happens once, but that death is something that's happening always. And every second, every minute that passes, every year that passes now belongs to death. It's as dead as any of the people in this cemetery. You'll never get it back, which is why you should live it, embrace it, and don't waste it while you have it.

• 17:59Ryan Holiday?

  Every day, I send out one Stoic-inspired email totally for free to almost a million people all over the world. If you want to take your Stoicism journey to the next level, I would love for you to subscribe. It's totally for free. You can unsubscribe at any time. There's no spam. Just go to dailystoic.com/email. Love to see you there.