At Least It’s a Chance to Do This

"It would have been much better if this hadn’t happened. If your employee had listened. If your parents could respect your boundaries. If your neighbor wasn’t so rude. If people hadn’t been reckless. If your kids had passed their math test. If nobody had taken offense to your joke... But that’s not how it shook out."So how do you deal with it? Find out on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***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 @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good 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. At least, it's a chance to do this. It would have been much better if this hadn't happened, if your employee had listened, if your parents could respect your boundaries, if your neighbor wasn't so rude, if people hadn't been so reckless, if your kids had passed their math test, if nobody had taken offense to your joke. But that's not how

• 0:49Ryan Holiday?

  it shook out. And while that's not preferable, it is the reality. You could bemoan it, you could point the finger, you could run away from it. Or, you could see that this as at least a chance, a chance to have a conversation, or rather, to get some practice at having those difficult conversations we have to have in life. Knocking on your neighbor's door and talking to them without losing your temper, calling the employee into your office and having to let them go, apologizing for the remark you made, having to teach your kids a tough lesson, confronting your parents. Remember, the Stoics don't dread these things, they embrace them. "It's fortunate that this happened," Marcus Aurelius said. "It's fortunate that it happened to me because not everyone else would be able to handle it." Also, it's

• 1:34Ryan Holiday?

  fortunate because it's a chance to do something you need to get better at doing. It's a chance to step up. It's a chance to be firm. It's a chance to practice at least one, if not all four, of those virtues: courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. No matter what happened, whether it was a minor slight or a painful catastrophe, the situation is an opportunity, should we choose to see it that way. Hey, just wanted to remind you, if you want to take your practice of Stoicism to the next level, if you want some physical reminders of the ideas we talk about here, check out the Daily Stoic store and go to dailystoic.com/store. These products are what help us keep the lights on here at Daily Stoic. They help grow the business, let us

• 2:16Ryan Holiday?

  spread the message to more and more people. So if you want to support us, check that out. Go to dailystoic.com/store.