Make Good On Your Promise | The Wake Up

Ryan discusses what we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr. about living philosophically, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:33Ryan Holiday?

  Make good on your promise. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in America. And it's worth taking a minute today to consider one particularly brilliant and inspiring part from King's approach to civil rights. What Martin Luther King didn't do in the 1950s and 1960s was simply point out how hypocritical and flawed the United States was. He didn't use his immense skills as an order to paint a depressing, bleak picture of the racial state of affairs. On the contrary, what MLK did was work hard to capture the true essence of what America was supposed to be. He picked up all the central beliefs of the founding fathers,

• 1:16Ryan Holiday?

  justice, freedom, equality. And then he said, "We can live up to this. We can do this together. We are capable of better." Of course, America did not hear this message immediately. In fact, huge swaths of the population did not want to hear it at all. So King and his followers showed them. They took to the streets and through the new medium of television, made it undeniable just how far short America had fallen from its ideals, how disgusting and disturbing segregation and racism were. Faced with this appalling spectacle, the country worked little by little to reach for that higher standard he set for us, to fulfill the vision of what the country was intended to be.

• 2:01Ryan Holiday?

  It should be said that the Stoics follow a similar tact, unlike some philosophies and religions which use their logic and intellect to make life seem meaningless. meaningless and small. The Stoics sought to inspire the individual to reach their full human potential. Sure, they would point out the discrepancies and failures, but only to make a larger point, to be able to say, "Look at you. You are better than this. You can do more. You need to do more." And in Marcus Aurelius's writings, we find a man who, in his private moments, sought to say to himself, "You studied this philosophy your whole life. Now you're in a position of power. Live up to it. Make good on your

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  promises. Be what your fathers hoped you could be." And of course, this is not easy to do. We will fall short along the way. We will fall embarrassingly and shamefully short. In the case of civil rights, it took hundreds of years for the full version of the equality laid out in the Declaration of Independence in the US Constitution to be made true. And we're still falling short today, just as we, on an individual level, will fall short of our potential and our ideals. Why is that? It's because we are human, because the standards are lofty and challenging, because what Martin Luther King Jr. said was true, that there is something of a civil war going on within all our lives.

• 3:25Ryan Holiday?

  There is a recalcitrant south of our soul revolting against the north of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. But we have to keep trying. We can honor his memory and our potential today by making headway in that battle and then get up and do the very same again tomorrow.

• 3:50Ryan Holiday?

  The Wake Up. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, "366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living," by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon. Then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed, personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. Each morning, when you sit with the journal and think about Stoicism,

• 4:29Ryan Holiday?

  you are following in the footsteps of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and all the other great Stoics. The Stoics did not face each day on a whim, but instead with preparation and discipline. They spent real time thinking and anticipating what was to come over the course of a day, of a week, and of a year. Each morning activity, including journaling, including listening to this podcast, anything you do in the morning, for the Stoic is designed to make you ready to face the day, and you can be ready for the day as well. Ask yourself the following first thing in the morning. What am I lacking in attaining freedom from passion? What for tranquility? What am I, a mere body, a stateholder, a reputation? None of these things.

• 5:14Ryan Holiday?

  What then? A rational being. What then is demanded of me? Meditate on your actions. How did I steer away from serenity? What did I do that was unfriendly, unsocial, and uncaring? What did I fail to do in all these things? That's from Epictetus's Discourses 4.6. On those mornings when you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind. I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I was going to do what I am made for? For the very things for which I was put into this world. Was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? So pleasurable. What then were you made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled, or to exert yourself? That's from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 5.1.

• 5:58Ryan Holiday?

  I think maybe my, maybe the first passage that really hit me in Meditations. Anyway, this idea of owning the morning, starting the day off right, is really so important. There's that expression, "What is well begun is half-done." And I think- You know, I don't know when you're listening to this, obviously. I hope it's in the morning. Maybe it's on your commute. Maybe it's as you brushing your teeth, or you've got it on a Sonos player or something, you're walking around your house. The point is, how you start the day is really important. For me, as I've said before, that my number one rule in the morning is I don't, I don't check my phone. I don't sleep with my phone in the room. I sleep with it in the kitchen, plugged in. So, you know, when I go to bed like 10, 11, and then when

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  I wake up, you know, 6 or 7, that's a, that's a good chunk of time without the phone, first and foremost. And then I, my wife usually gets up before, our new routine is my wife wakes up before, she goes upstairs, she works, I get up with the kids, I give them the snack, put on their jackets, because it's been cold in Austin, and then we go, we go for our walk out on, on the road by our house. We go for this walk, depending on how light or foggy it is, it might change the route, so I don't want to get hit by a car. But we usually, we usually do about three miles, and then we come back, I give them their breakfast, and my wife is showering, or on the Peloton, or maybe she's cooked breakfast for them, whatever. I, I go back into the bedroom, I sit down with my journals, including the Daily Stoic

• 7:26Ryan Holiday?

  Journal, which, which you, which the, the passage I just read is from, and then I do my sort of thinking. So, the Daily Stoic Journal is supposed to be, you do a morning reflection and evening reflection. Just because I've been busy lately, I typically, I'll do, I'll do the, the evening reflection in the morning, so I'll reflect on how I did with the, the thing I was thinking about yesterday, and then I, I sort of set my intention for the day as well. And so, what I like about the journal is just the questions, right? So, I'm reading this, I do these a little bit before, but so let's, let's see what today's question was. I'm recording this on the, so it's just, you know, it's just a wonderful little part of the morning, and it's, it's been an integral part of my day. Epictetus

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  says, "Every day and night, keep thoughts like these at hand. Write them, read them aloud, talk to yourself and others about them." That's what Stoicism is, this sort of interplay, this, this, this engaging with the material and re-engaging it. You know, Epictetus I loved all the questions he's asking himself. What am I lacking? Where, what's disrupting my tranquility? What am I like? Who am I? And I'm glad you're listening to this, but as we sort of wrapped up the year, it's not just about, it's not that one way conversation. It's not the Stoics talking to you. It's not my writing talking to you. It's not the self improvement books you're reading. It's not the, it's not the podcast you're listening to. It should also be, what are you putting out there? What are you asking yourself? What are you thinking about? That's how we improve.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  That's how we grow. And I think that's a great habit for the year. So if you're not journaling, you should. If you are journaling, I would push you to sort of ask yourself these questions. But then I'd also just, you know, make sure you have some of that time for that sort of stillness and reflection and contemplation in the morning. And make sure you're asking yourself questions in the morning. I think even the walk that I'm doing, you know, I'm thinking about stuff. My mind is engaged and that's what, that's what helps me kick off a great day. And as we said, what's well begun is half done. So let's get out there. I wish you a great morning, whatever time zone you're in. I hope 2021 is off to a good start for you.

• 9:35Ryan Holiday?

  And looking forward to connecting with you over the next 12 months. And making this a great year. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. You just go to dailystoic.com/email. So check it out, dailystoic.com/email.