This Is The Greatest Pleasure | 9 Habits the Stoics Want You to Stop Doing

The Stoics were not afraid of joy, but they found joy in a different place than most people. It wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t accumulating money. “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse,” Epictetus liked to say, “so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.”---Excellence isn’t this thing you do one time. It’s a way of living. It’s foundational. It’s like an operating system and the code this system operates on is habit.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️ 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.

• 0:31Ryan Holiday?

  This is the greatest pleasure. The Stoics didn't reject worldly pleasures. They rejected the reckless ones, the dangerous, the ephemeral, the empty ones. Stoics weren't afraid of joy. They just found joy in different places than most people. It wasn't pleasure. It wasn't accumulating money. Just as one person delights in improving his farm and another his horse, Epictetus liked to say, "So I delight in attending to my own improvement day to day." Delight, not a word you'd expect to see from Epictetus, but there it is. And it can be found in such an unexpected way, not in materials, not in a hobby, but in oneself, in improving oneself. And when you think about it, isn't that a wonderful thing?

• 1:15Ryan Holiday?

  When you get better, when you realize your full potential. We can imagine Marcus Aurelius having fun while writing his meditations because he was attending to his own development. The same goes for Seneca, as he did his crazy philosophical practices, whether it was diving into a freezing fountain at the beginning of the year or living frugally to prepare himself for changes in fortune. Cato took real pleasures in challenging himself, walking barefoot and bareheaded, sleeping on the ground with his soldiers, dressing simply and working hard. These men took pride in self-actualization in knowing that they were becoming what they were meant to be. And so can you. We can become our own hobby. We can become our own source of satisfaction. The economy determines what we can do professionally,

• 1:58Ryan Holiday?

  but no one can stop us from working on our inner selves. No one or anything can take away the pleasure we earn from getting better every single day.

• 2:09Ryan Holiday?

  And that's one of the reasons we've built out the 2023 New Year New You Challenge, which starts in just 11 days. It's your chance to challenge yourself to commit to your own improvement in 2023 and experience the joy and rewards that come with doing that. The New Year New You Challenge is 21 actionable challenges presented one per day. We've been doing it for five years now here at the Daily Stoic, and it's just one of our best things, my favorite thing to do every year. Look, the challenge is not only inspired by Stoic philosophy itself, but it's packed with timeless wisdom from all different sources, including my own experiences. The ideas in this challenge are designed to help you learn new skills, be more disciplined,

• 2:51Ryan Holiday?

  strengthen your relationships, break destructive thought patterns, gain clarity, make progress towards the person you're meant to be. 21 days, as I said, three live Q and A's with me, a principal calendar, you mark your progress as you go. There's a group Discord for accountability and community, a bunch more awesome stuff. To learn more and reserve your spot in the 2023 New Year New You Challenge, head over to dailystoic.com/challenge. I'd love to see you in there, and it's gonna be awesome. Remember, if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, if you're thinking about doing that, dailystoiclife.com, you get this challenge and all the challenges in 2023 for free. dailystoic.com/challenge, dailystoiclife.com.

• 3:39Ryan Holiday?

  Epicetus once encapsulated all of Stoic philosophy in just two words, persist and resist, meaning there were some things we had to keep doing, but more importantly, there were things we had to stop doing. Well, here, as we look out over a potential new year, I wanted to focus on the latter part of this. Habits, practices, vices that the Stoics say you must stop doing. It's the perfect time to start quitting some destructive habits, get rid of destructive emotions, free yourself from the things that are holding you back. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've written these books about Stoic philosophy. I've been lucky enough to talk about it to the NBA and the NFL, sitting senators and special forces leaders. And what we're going to talk about in today's episode are not things I tell them to do,

• 4:20Ryan Holiday?

  but things I tell them they must stop doing, that I'm trying to stop doing, and so should you. Don't give in to your anxiety this year. You have to stop letting anxiety rule you. In one of the passages in Meditations, Marcus Aurelius says, "Today I escaped anxiety." He said, "Wait, wait, no, that's not right." He says, "Actually, I discarded it. It was within me." The plane, the airport, that's not responsible for your anxiety. You're responsible for your feelings. You're responsible for the worry that you're projecting at this thing. And it's not helping you. It's not making you better. It's not doing anything about the problem. You're just torturing yourself in anticipation of what might happen or might not happen. I've never been in the thrall of anxiety, traveling somewhere, and then afterwards been like, "I'm so glad I was so anxious about that. It did so much."

• 5:04Ryan Holiday?

  No, it made people around me upset. It made me upset. It made me miserable. It didn't do anything for me, and it's not going to do anything for you this year. You have to stop doing less than your best. There's this great story about Jimmy Carter. He's being interviewed. He wants to get this job when he's a naval officer. And after Carter has talked about how he did in school, all the grades he got, the tests he passed, the things he learned, the interviewer looks at him and goes, "But did you always do your best?" And Carter has to answer him honestly. And he goes, "No, I guess I didn't always do my best." And the man looks at him and he says, "Why not?" And he gets up and he leaves the room. And that question haunts Carter for the rest of his life. Why didn't he always do his best? And as you look back in your own life, on last year and the years before, why didn't you always give your best?

• 5:47Ryan Holiday?

  Why are you doing things that you don't think deserve your best? This year, we have to do our best at whatever we're doing. We have to give everything that we have. That is one of the things that we control. We don't control whether we succeed. We don't control whether we win. We don't control whether we get recognized for what we do. But we do control whether we do our best, whether we give everything we have. And as the great Steve Prefontaine quote goes, "Giving less than your best is to cheat the gift." Not just the gift of your talents, I would say, but also the gift of the time in front of you, the life you've been given. The Stoics say you have to stop being a slave this year. There's a story I tell in Discipline is Destiny about Richard Feynman. One day, it's like 10 o'clock in the morning. He's out for a walk and he feels this pull, wants to have a drink.

• 6:31Ryan Holiday?

  He never saw himself as an alcoholic, had never had this problem with alcoholism. He was deeply uncomfortable with this drive, this pull to do something. It was coming from a part of him that he didn't control. The Stoics say that's something you have to be really suspicious of. Seneca says slavery isn't just this legal status. He says, everyone's a slave. He says, someone's a slave to their mistress. Somebody's a slave to money. Someone's a slave to power and attention. And he said, those people might be literally free. They might be powerful. They might be important. They're not in control. In Discipline is Destiny, I also tell the story of Eisenhower. He was told by his doctor that is smoking. I mean, he'd smoke like four packs a day for 40 years. It was hurting his health. I love this. He says, "I gave myself an order to stop smoking." And he stopped smoking cold turkey like that.

• 7:15Ryan Holiday?

  It's going to be harder for some people, easier for some people. But the point is, you've got to give yourself that order. You have to say, who's in charge? This habit, this addiction, this vice that I have, this thing that I want? Or am I in charge? Am I the boss or is it the boss? And that's what Feynman was reacting to. That's what Seneca was reacting to. That's what Eisenhower's reacting to. And ultimately, that's what Epictetus is reacting to in the same court as Seneca. He looks around and he goes, "I'm a slave, but I'm freer than these people because I'm in control of my habits. I decide what I do and what I don't do." And we have to give ourselves that power this year. The one thing all fools have in common, Seneca said, is that they're always getting ready to begin. They're always putting it off. They say, "I'll do it later. I'll do it at some point."

• 8:00Ryan Holiday?

  New Year's is such a perfect time to break that cycle, to get serious, to say, "I'm going to make that change now." We created this really awesome new challenge for Daily Stoic. It's the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. You get over 30,000 words worth of content. There's multiple video sessions with me and all the people in the challenge where we ask questions, we hold each other accountable, we share the things that we're learning and going through as part of the challenge. There's a private Discord with all the people. We can find an accountability partner, we can meet new friends. Is designed to get you out of your comfort zone, to help you build new habits, to take charge, to learn new skills, to go to what's essential and to eliminate the inessential, to take real steps towards being the person that you are meant to be this year.

• 8:44Ryan Holiday?

  So don't put it off, don't delay. I'd love to have you join us in the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge at dailystoic.com/challenge.

• 8:56Ryan Holiday?

  In one of the beautiful passages in Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reminds himself, everything in life comes from change, good and bad. By trying to keep things the same, not only are you, of course, focused on something that you don't control, but you're preventing yourself from all the wonderful opportunities that exist that could come your way. We live in a time of disruption. We live in a time of institutions that are falling apart. We live in a time of innovation, new institutions that are being created. So you can't fear what's going to come of that. The Stoics say, all you can focus on this year is embracing those things, adapting yourself to change, rather than fighting it, rather than fearing it, rather than resenting it. Because it's going to happen regardless of how you feel about it. So what you should focus on is what you're going to do about it. Marcus Aurelius talks about justice over and over again in Meditations, the things that we

• 9:41Ryan Holiday?

  have to do. But he reminds himself by saying, and remember, you can commit an injustice by doing nothing also. JFK, in one of his famous speeches, thinks he's quoting Dante. He says, hottest places in hell are for those who remain neutral. Dante never says this. We can imagine that he's probably thinking of his own father, Joseph Kennedy, who famously advocates neutrality and eventually appeasement as he's the US ambassador to Britain as World War II is breaking out. Kennedy reacting to the fact that in one of the great moral moments of history, his father turned a blind eye to what was happening. He didn't care. And so we have to understand that history is going to look back at this moment and judge us for the things

• 10:23Ryan Holiday?

  that we were morally neutral on as well, things that we turned a blind eye towards. So, asism is focused on what we control as individuals. As individuals, there's not a lot that we control. And yet, and yet, if every individual only focused on what they controlled, we would lose the Capacity for what you would call collective action to be able to come together to solve complex, big societal global issues. You cannot turn a blind eye this year. You must ask yourself, where am I part of the problem? Where can I be part of the solution? How can I focus on and think about the common good? How can I make sure that I'm not committing an injustice by doing nothing, caring little, saying nothing?

• 11:02Ryan Holiday?

  Don't look for the third thing this year. In Meditations, Marx really says, okay, you did something good. Someone benefited from it. That's one. And two, the third thing he said is asking to be recognized for it, asking to be thanked for it, asking to be paid in return for it. He says, no, you have to stop looking for the third thing. We don't control whether people appreciate it. We don't control whether people understand it. We don't control whether it's liked in its own time. We only control what we do. If you want to have more resources, more happiness this year, one of the things you can do is stop looking for credit, attention, recognition, compensation in return and focus instead on, did you do your best? Did you do a really good job? Did you give everything that you had?

• 11:44Ryan Holiday?

  Do you think you made a positive contribution to the world, to humanity, to the common good? If so, then you have been paid back. You have been recognized. You did what your nature demanded. The Stoics would say you did your job and that's enough. You have to stop putting stuff off. One of my favorite quotes from Marx really, he says, you could be good today, instead you choose tomorrow. Sankara says, the one thing that all fools have in common is they're always getting ready to start. They're always putting it off a little bit in the future. My friend Stephen Pressfield says, we don't say, I'm never going to do it. You say, I'm going to do it tomorrow. You have to stop putting stuff off this year. You have to do it now, not later, now. You have to quit holding on to stuff. I don't mean physical possessions, although you should stop hanging on to those too.

• 12:28Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics would say that you have to let go, right? It already happened. It's done. Grudges aren't helping you. Regrets aren't helping you. There's a great New Year's tradition where people would write down all the things that they're hanging on to, that they regret, that they're mad about. And then on New Year's, they would light it on fire and they'd watch it dissolve into smoke. The Stoics would say that hanging on to stuff, torturing yourself. Regretting things, it's not serving you, it's not serving the world, and it's not going to make you who you're capable of being this year. So let's start the new year by letting go of things. We have to quit holding on to things. Seneca says, "It's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. We put stuff off, we don't do things urgently because we think it's not urgent, we think we have an unlimited amount of time." But we don't. Death stalks us all. I carry this coin in

• 13:12Ryan Holiday?

  my pocket, it says memento mori. On the back, it has a quote from Marcus Aurelius, it says, "You could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think. Let that determine what you don't do this year, what you stop doing this year." Not just that you stop wasting time, but you stop wasting time being a slave to things, that you stop wasting time chasing other people's approval, having opinions about things that don't matter, that you waste time not demanding the best of and for yourself, right? You have to stop. You have to take this moment seriously because this moment may be all that you have. Let's carry that forward with us the rest of the year. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this,

• 13:53Ryan Holiday?

  you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com/email.