Stress Is a Fact Of Life, Being Stressed Is Not

"You think the Stoics didn’t experience stress? Of course they did... Seneca had health problems, was exiled, and then had to show up to work for years in Nero’s court—walking on eggshells around an unstable man with a penchant for bloodlust. Epictetus survived thirty years of exile. Marcus Aurelius’s reign included a plague, health problems, wars, flooding, bankruptcy, and family issues... That’s the definition of stress."Learn the Stoic solution to stress in today's Daily Stoic Podcast. Sign up for Daily Stoic's Slay Your Stress course now: https://dailystoic.com/stress***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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Stress is a fact of life. Being stressed is not. You think that the Stoics didn't experience stress? Of course they did. Xeno lost everything in a shipwreck. Cleiantheus arrived in Athens with empty pockets. Panateus was the right-hand man of Cypio, one of the most powerful and busy leaders in ancient Rome. Seneca had health problems, was exiled, then had to show up every day to work for years in Nero's court, walking on eggshells around a man who was not stable. Epictetus survived 30 years of slavery. Marcus Aurelius' reign included a plague, health problems, wars, flooding, bankruptcy, and family issues.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  That's the definition of stress: the friction of conflicting obligations, hardship, uncertainty, pain, failure, other people. These were all inevitable parts of life, according to the Stoics. But suffering because of it? Actually being stressed because there was stress? No, those are not the same things. One does not have to follow the other. When Marcus Aurelius said that he could choose not to feel harmed and then he wouldn't be, that's what he meant. When he talked about discarding his anxiety, that's what he meant. Stress was a fact of life. Being stressed, feeling stressed, that was a choice. It is up to us. Indeed, you might argue that all of the Stoics' teachings revolve around the idea

• 1:55Ryan Holiday?

  of combating and avoiding the unnecessary pain and stress and anxiety and worry and frustration of life. The philosophy demanded the active life. It demanded that we participate in politics, be social, contribute to the common good, fight for what's right. And so it was critical that Stoicism also teach us to resist the temptation to succumb to the stresses that follow that activity. That's why the pages of Marcus Aurelius's journal are filled with notes to himself on how to escape anxiety and not be controlled by his temper. That's why Epictetus talked to his students over and over again about focusing on what was in their control and nothing else. Seneca's letters are constant reminders not to suffer before it is necessary, not just

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  reminders, but practical, actionable steps to overcoming both. Inspired by that, we have assembled the best Stoic wisdom into an actionable new course, and we're calling it Daily Stoics: Slay Your Stress, a 13-day challenge designed to reclaim your life from the negative effects of stress and anxiety. How much more enjoyable would your days be without the constant dread of stress looming over you? How much more productive would you be without spending hours a day indulging imagined troubles? How much better would your relationships be? Stoics have been trying to domesticate feelings of anxiety and stress for millennia. We designed this course to help you reclaim your life from those two forces, and in this

• 3:21Ryan Holiday?

  13-day challenge, we will lay out the most actionable ways to help you manage your stress, your anxiety, and the difficulties of life, backed by thousands of years of research and practice. You'll learn to name and slay your stress, putting it in its rightful place, how to seize what is in your control and ignore the rest, how to be easier on yourself to get more done, how to make your to-do list more manageable, how to stop sweating the small stuff, get historical perspective, much, much more. How many hours do we lose to stress and anxiety? That's what the Stoics wanted us to ask. Now, let's multiply that by 365. Now multiply it by your lifetime. Isn't it time that we do something about it?

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  You can check out Daily Stoics: Slay Your Stress, dailystoic.com/stress.