Take This Seriously…But Not TOO Seriously | The Real Source of Harm

Punctuality is a matter of self-discipline, but also respect. We must be aware of and in command of our schedule and the time we’ve allocated to different people and activities. We must also care about how our decisions affect those people. Which is why it’s not hard to imagine Marcus Aurelius or Cato being quite diligent about when they arrived and when things started, even though they were powerful enough to insist that others wait for them. But what about when they screwed up or lost track of time? Did they whip themselves? Berate themselves for being lazy? No, hopefully not!---And in today's reading of The Daily Stoic, Ryan examines Epictetus's quote, "Keep in mind that it isn't the one that has it in for you and takes a swipe that harms you, but rather the harm comes from your own belief about the abuse."📚 Check out The Painted Porch to get your copy of Discipline is Destiny.✉️ 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

• 0:42Ryan Holiday?

  "Take this seriously, but not too seriously. Punctuality is a matter of self-discipline, but also respect. We must be aware of and in command of our schedule and the time we've allocated to different people and activities. We also must care about how our decisions affect those people, which is why it's not hard to imagine Marcus Aurelius or Cato being quite diligent about when they arrived and when things started, even though they were powerful enough to insist that others wait on them. But what about when they screwed up or lost track of time? Did they whip themselves? Did they berate themselves for being lazy? No, hopefully not. Gary Vaynerchuk recently asked

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  about the Stoic take on punctuality for his podcast, as well as the proper response for falling short of a goal to be more punctual. Well, one thing we have to remember is that the Stoics did not regard guilt as a productive emotion. It does nothing but send you plummeting down a spiral of self-loathing. None of that. Be a better friend to yourself, as the Stoics would say. If you've fallen short, acknowledge that you slipped up, and then with discipline and rigor, put an end to that discussion and commit yourself to getting back closer to the place you want to be." And that's the balance I'm trying to strike in Discipline is Destiny. You want to be strict, but not so strict that you miss the forest for the trees,

• 2:08Ryan Holiday?

  that you hurt yourself, that you end up valuing things that don't really matter, that you have no room for flexibility, adjustments, iterative improvement. You know, temperance is another way of saying balance. And punctuality is important, but it's not the most important thing. And this idea of taking something seriously, but not too seriously, it's something I also talk about in how we dress, our physical appearance, you know, our weight, another good example. You want to be strict about it. You don't want it to spiral out of control, but it can spiral out of control in the other direction, too. And that's the balance that we're trying to strike as Stoics. And if you want some more thoughts on this, check out Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control, which is selling like crazy. It debuted on the list and I appreciate everyone's support. If you did read the book, thank you very much.

• 2:53Ryan Holiday?

  I really appreciate it. Maybe leave a review on Amazon or Audible. I'd appreciate that, too. And I'll let you guys get back to your day.

• 3:08Ryan Holiday?

  The Real Source of Harm. This is from today's entry in the Daily Stoic.

• 3:15Ryan Holiday?

  And the quote today is from Epictetus's Incoridion. Keep in mind that it isn't the one who has it in for you and takes a swipe that harms you, but rather the harm comes from your own belief about the abuse. So whenever someone arouses your anger, know that it's really your own opinion fooling it. Instead, make it your response not to be carried away by such an impression, for with time and distance, self-mastery is more easily achieved. Then the entry says that the Stoics remind us that there really is no such thing as an objectively good or bad occurrence. When a billionaire loses $1 million in a market fluctuation, it's not the same as when you or I lose $1 million.

• 3:59Ryan Holiday?

  Criticism from your worst enemy is received differently than negative words from a spouse. If someone sends you an angry email, but you've never seen it, did it actually happen? In other words, all these situations require our participation, context, and categorization in order to be "bad." Our reaction is what actually decides whether harm has occurred. If we feel we've been wronged or get angry, of course, that's how it will seem. If we raise our voice because we feel like we've been confronted naturally, a confrontation will ensue. But if we retain control of ourselves, then we decide whether to label something good or bad. In fact, if that same event happened to us at different points in our lifetime, we might have different reactions.

• 4:43Ryan Holiday?

  So why not choose to not apply these labels? Why not choose to not react? Actually, I just gave a talk, flew to Oklahoma, and I was saying this there to this group of people. We were talking about the pandemic. And I was saying that it's not good or bad. I don't mean that in the moral sense. Of course, although we could get into a whole semantic debate about whether there's such a thing as good and evil, that's not what the Stoics are saying. Because of course, the Stoics say that virtue is important and that evil does exist. We're not saying that there's no such thing as good or bad in that sense. We're saying that in the positive or negative sense. When Shakespeare says, "Nothing, neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so," that's what he means, right?

• 5:27Ryan Holiday?

  A bull or a bear market, I was saying in the talk, they don't really exist. These are words that we make up, right? We decide that the market is bad for us. We decide that the job market is not a good one. We decide whether we live in a golden age or a decline, right? These are labels that we put on things. The Stoics are saying not just that, but that also so much of what we...

• 5:52Ryan Holiday?

  Are upset about is actually relative. Like, how many people would kill, actually, to be in the exact same position that you are in? We just don't think about it because we forget that not everyone has it nearly as good as us. Right? Again, the labels, right? These are all relative terms. But how many people would kill to have been dumped? Because they've never been with anyone, right? How many people would kill to be in a position to lose a million dollars in the market? Or to lose any market? To lose any money in the market because it can't even participate? So the idea is, is understanding that, that harm, that I've been negatively affected by this,

• 6:34Ryan Holiday?

  that, that, that this sits in the space of judgment, not objective reality. Now, let's, let's go to, to what Epictetus is saying. He's talking, when someone hits you, right? That, that's not the good or bad thing. The, the, the, the thing is whether you decide to be harmed. So he's not, of course, saying that abuse doesn't exist or anything like that, which sometimes people have the, the reaction to. They go, oh, so we're just supposed to accept everything that happens to us. That's not really it. It's not, it's not that you accept being abused, that you accept these quote unquote negative situations. It's that you decide to remain unharmed by them, right? Okay, I'll give you another example.

• 7:19Ryan Holiday?

  FDR, during the Second World War, actually treats Winston Churchill quite poorly. Obviously, the America comes to be Britain's ally in the war, and we give enormous amounts of men and materiel. But, but in their actual meetings, FDR was his haughty, superior, somewhat callous and occasionally cruel self. This is how he tended to treat people. He treated Eleanor Roosevelt this way as well. And so, speaking of a few of these big moments, Winston Churchill's daughter says that

• 7:57Ryan Holiday?

  FDR's treatment hurt her father, but it did not unman him. Now, what she meant by that is that the remarks were inappropriate, and they were not okay. And they, of course, changed how Churchill saw FDR, although, obviously, he needed him so much as an athlete, he retained that self-mastery that Epictetus is talking about. And, of course, would have chosen not to undergo that if he had a choice. But after it did happen, Churchill didn't let it break him, didn't let it change him, didn't let it make him lose control of himself. So that's the idea. Of course, if a parent is abusive, that's not okay.

• 8:42Ryan Holiday?

  But we decide whether we have been tragically undone by our childhood, or if we assume responsibility for ourself, for our life right now, and do our best to heal and move on and grow, right? We decide whether this thing is the end for us. We decide what we do about it, right? We decide whether we have been harmed, or if we've actually been improved, if we grew, if we were made better for the adversity that we went through. That's the choice that we have. That's what he's talking about. And that's ultimately the difference between being wronged and being harmed that Marcus Aurelius talks about.

• 9:27Ryan Holiday?

  You can punch me, and I will feel that. I'm a human being. No amount of study of philosophy, the Stoics would say, would change that, right? Of course. But I choose whether that harms me, because harm is the attitude, the story, the opinion, the thing I do next in response to that. So I hope we make this distinction today. The real source of harm is ultimately in our judgments, our opinions, and the story we tell ourselves about what's happened.