You Meet Them Where They Are | When You Feel Lazy

Don't forge ahead hoping that someone will come along and relieve you of this task you don't want to do. Don't be the person who says yes with their mouth but no with their actions. Read the full Daily Stoic entry for today: https://store.dailystoic.com/🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam, Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tourLondon — November 12Rotterdam — November 13Dublin — November 15Vancouver — November 18Toronto — November 20✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow 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.

• 0:03Ryan 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.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  You meet them where they are. In 155 B.C., Athens was hit with a crippling 500-talent fine by the rising superpower that was Rome. Unable to afford it, the leaders of Athens summoned the city-state's only weapon of defense: its philosophers. Diogenes of Babylon, then the head of the Stoic School, was dispatched, along with Carneades of the Academy and Situlous of the Lyceum, to appeal the judgment through a series of lectures in Rome. Just a few years earlier, the Roman Senate had decreed an outright ban on philosophers, worried that the teachings of the Epicureans, skeptics, and cynics, each with their provocative

• 1:26Ryan Holiday?

  questions, would undermine Roman values and traditions. Even Stoicism, which had yet to break out from obscurity and into the public arena, was viewed with suspicion. Carneades, a skeptic, spoke first and delivered two controversial lectures, one in praise of justice and another challenging the existence of justice and its practicality. He wanted to demonstrate the immense power of rhetoric, but instead confirmed to some Romans that philosophy was nothing more than sophistry. Cato the Elder, one of Rome's most sober and politically influential characters, he was so horrified that he demanded the philosophers be sent home before they could corrupt any more of the city's youth. Diogenes followed

• 2:11Ryan Holiday?

  Carneades with discussions on Stoic principles, such as cultivating personal virtue within oneself, the importance of justice in governance, and the power of reason. He spoke in a straightforward and frank manner, devoid of emotional manipulation or rhetoric.

• 2:28Ryan Holiday?

  What struck the Romans most was his restraint in sobriety and his clear and practical ethics while they opened a door for Rome's elite to reconsider the value of philosophy and education. In fact, Cato the Elder's great grandson, Cato the Younger, would eventually become one of the greatest students of Stoicism and went down in history for his ardent defense of Rome's old ways and its traditions. You could argue that it's because of Diogenes that we even know about Stoicism in the present day. He was the first Stoic to go beyond the stoa, which means porch in the Athenian agora, and he met audiences where they were in order to spread this philosophy, serving as a bridge between the early founders of Stoicism and its later Roman proponents.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  Without him introducing Stoicism to Rome, would Cato, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius be the examples that we cherish today? Perhaps not. And you know, anytime I get on stage, it's Ryan, by the way, I try to remember that precedent, the example of Diogenes. Because look, you don't become a writer because you want to talk in front of large groups of people. As a writer, there's something comfortable and safe about the page. That's what drew you to it in the first place. You're safe there. You have all the time in the world to perfect your arguments. You don't risk criticism from the audience or risk the rush that Marcus Aurelius himself noted about being up there on the rostrum. But

• 3:54Ryan Holiday?

  you can't hide on stage. Right away, in the moment, the audience lets you know what they think and feel about you. But at a certain point, I had to accept that my ego and my fears were prohibiting me from trying this difficult art. Just like Diogenes was willing to travel to Rome to spread Stoicism, I had to be able to meet you, the audience, my fans, where you are if I really believed in this philosophy. That's why here at Daily Stoic, one of the things we work really hard on is trying to take my writing and make it work in these different mediums, YouTube, this podcast you're listening to, even social media. Not all of them are like naturally comfortable for me, but I have gotten better

• 4:36Ryan Holiday?

  at challenging myself with them. And lately, I've been doing more stuff on stage. I've been doing this tour. Instead of doing like private events, which I normally do, I've been onstage in front of you in audience sizes that Frankly, sort of blow me away and terrify me. Back in August in Sydney, I was in Sydney Town Hall and Melbourne Town Hall. So like 2,000 people, it was insane. But it's a joy, it's a challenge to connect with you and share Stoicism with you. And I feel like I'm continuing that tradition a little bit. And as it happens, I'm going back out on the road in November. In North America, I will be in Vancouver and Toronto. That's the 18th and 20th of November. But before that, I will be in Europe.

• 5:20Ryan Holiday?

  I'm going to be in London on the 12th, Rotterdam on the 13th, and then back in Dublin on the 15th. I would love to see you there. I'll link to the tickets in today's show notes. You can grab it at RyanHoliday.net. And you know what? I'll play a little chunk of that talk for you now, just to, just to give you a taste.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Was Marcus Reus talking about, you know, responding to the small ups and downs of life? I don't think so. I think it was something deeper than that. You know, some people who maybe like that guy couldn't like me very much. They said that Marcus Reus is depressing, that meditation is a little dark. And I would agree, and that's because Marcus Reus's life was fucking depressing. Like Marcus Reus says, life was dark. This is a man who loses his father early on. He's thrust into politics, not something he saw, whatever he wanted. What you told him breaks down, weeping when he's told him he will someday be king. Cause he can think of all the bad case of history.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Maybe it seems fun to be emperor, but it doesn't tend to go well for people who become emperor. And it turns out to be like one thing after another for this guy. Actually, the ancient story, he admitted in Marcus Reus's time, he said, if Marcus Reus doesn't be able to get fortune, then he deserves. His whole reign is involved in a series of trouble. George Marcus Reus would have said that a series of trouble. Man, what the hell are you talking about? This has been tragedy after tragedy, heartbreak after heartbreak.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Twenty years of peace and prosperity and stability just evaporate like the day he takes over. There's a historic flood, a devastating flood, a devastating pandemic to play in the last half of like one or two or three years, but by fifteen years, millions of Romans died. He spends years of his reign fighting these endless wars. He would say, "Life is warfare and journey far from home." He was speaking literally, he just spends so much of his time away and not by choice. They said that no parent should have buried a child. Marcus Aurelius has to attend six funerals for his children.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Half of his children do not make it to the dolphine. Life is a devastating series of hammer blows, of pain and misfortune and awfulness. One thing after another. And so honestly, I would say that this work, the retentions here, is actually a work of profound optimism and hope and perseverance. He kept going, but this guy got out of bed every morning. It was a statement of optimism and hope. His life is dark, but he keeps going, he perseveres through all of it. Actually, that same historian would say that he admires Marcus all the more for this very reason,

• 8:19Speaker 01

  because in these extraordinary circumstances, he survives and preserves the empire.

• 8:26Ryan Holiday?

  So anyways, London on the 12th, Rotterdam the 13th, Dublin the 15th, Vancouver the 18th, Toronto the 20th. I'm really excited. It's gonna be awesome. I can't wait to see you. We're doing like a backstage thing where I'm gonna answer a bunch of your questions also. We have a few of those tickets left and you can grab all that at ryanholiday.net/tour and I can't wait to see all of you there.

• 8:53Ryan Holiday?

  When you feel lazy, this is the August 30th entry in The Daily Stoic. I don't know, maybe you heard of the book. Hopefully you heard of the book. It'd be weird if you're listening to the Daily Stoic podcast and you didn't know there was a Daily Stoic book, but you never know. Actually, you know, it's funny. I'm looking at this. I told you last week I had to run upstairs to grab the first edition of the hardcover. And I know this is a first edition because it doesn't say The Daily Stoic at the top of every page, which is something we realized in those early days of it coming out in 2016, is people were posting pictures and not everyone knew what book it is. So in your, in the subsequent versions, whatever version of it you have, you would see it says The Daily Stoic at

• 9:37Ryan Holiday?

  the top of every page. But anyways, let's get to today's entry. We've got another quote from Seneca's Letters. This is letter 31. "Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses. If you start something and right away feel yourself getting lazy and irritated, ask yourself, why am I doing this? Is it really necessary? If it really is a necessity, ask yourself, what's behind my reluctance, my fear, my spite, my fatigue? Don't forge ahead hoping that

• 10:18Ryan Holiday?

  someone will come along and relieve you of this task you don't want to do, or that someone else will suddenly explain why you're doing that matters. Don't be the kind of person who says yes with their mouth, but no with their actions." Steve Jobs told Businessweek in 2005, only midway through Apple's stunning rise to becoming one of the world's most valuable companies, "Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles." You know, this idea of how you do anything is how you do everything, right? One way we take that, and there's a chapter about this in The Obstacle is the Way, but one way to take that is like, do everything as though it is incredibly important, right? And that's true. If you're doing it, do it as if it's important. But the question is,

• 11:03Ryan Holiday?

  if it's not important, why are you doing it? Mark Schubert's question was to ask yourself, you know, is this thing essential? Right? Because he says, most of what we do and say is not essential. And his, his point was not to do these inessential things as if they are essential. He says, you gotta eliminate those inessential things so you can get the double benefit of doing the essential things better. When I find myself like marking an email as unread, saying, oh, I'll get to this later. When I find myself doing that procrastination, seeing that resistance, yes, sometimes it's because it's going to be really hard and I gotta do it as if it matters. I gotta do it, that spirit of courage and discipline that Seneca is talking about.

• 11:48Ryan Holiday?

  But other times, this is a clue. This is my subconscious letting me know, deep down, we know we don't need to be doing this, we shouldn't be doing this. This thing is something we got bullied into, something we didn't have the discipline to say no to, right? Something that is fundamentally inessential. And so I don't want you to think that Stoicism is just gritting your teeth and bearing everything, doing everything a thousand percent, right? It's, it's doing the right things, the right way, the right amount of effort, right? That, that quote from Epictetus, he says, you know, you could summarize Stoicism in two words, persist and resist. So some things you're persistent, you're pushing through, you're doing them with that

• 12:32Ryan Holiday?

  spirit that Seneca is talking about. But other things you go, hey, that's not for me. I don't need to do that. That's not important to me. That's, that's not a good use of my time and energy. Steve Jobs is saying, hey, pick your shots, right? Pick your shots. And the ability to do that requires wisdom. So all these virtues kind of interconnect, courage, we're talking about, we're talking about discipline here, talking about justice, right? Caring about what you do and being committed to it, giving it the respect it deserves, but also the wisdom to know what deserves respect and what doesn't. That's a critical balance that you've gotta get right. I'll leave you that to chew on today and I'll talk to y'all soon.

• 13:19Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com/email.

• 13:47Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks.