What Can You Give Up To Help Others?

“It’s impossible to overstate the terror and uncertainty that swarmed Marcus’ life. Just while writing Meditations, Rome fought a war against the Parthians that lasted five years. The River Tiber had one of the worst floods in history, destroying homes and livestock, and delivering a famine. Eventually victorious against the Parthians, celebrations were short-lived because returning soldiers brought home a deadly contagion, which became known as the Antonine Plague.”Ryan challenges you to find some way to give back as Marcus Aurelius did, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Boy Who Would Be King is out today, written by Ryan Holiday in the depths of the pandemic (not unlike the one Marcus ruled through), this new beautifully crafted book is available now. Go to dailystoic.com/king to order now and you’ll automatically get the free audiobook.***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 Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: 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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  What can you give up to help others? It's impossible to overstate the terror and the uncertainty that swarmed Marcus Aurelius's life. Just while writing Meditations, Rome fought a war against the Parthianians that lasted five years. The river Tiber had one of its worst floods in history, destroying homes and livestock and delivering a famine. Eventually victorious against the Parthianians, celebrations were short-lived because returning soldiers brought home a deadly contagion, which became known as the Antonine Plague. Marcus would lose eight children, his co-Emperor, most of the Praetorian Guard, his top commander, his most trusted colleague, all to the plague.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  Fate, seemingly testing Marcus with one catastrophe after another, wasn't done yet. With Rome crippled by famine and plague, hostile tribes jumped on the opportunity to attack. Now Rome faced both a plague and a war. "All were aware that Rome faced a great crisis," biographer Frank McLean writes, "and the emperor had to tack between stressing the urgency of the situation and not affecting the morale of Romans by doing anything that smacked of panic." The first step was obvious. He needed help: more troops, medical experts, leaders. Less obvious was how he'd afford it. Rome's economy was primitive and brittle before the wars and plagues broke out.

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  Leading by example, McLean continues, "Marcus conducted a two-month sale of imperial effects and possessions, putting under the hammer not just sumptuous furniture from the imperial apartments, gold goblets, silver flagons, crystals, and chandeliers, but also his wife's silken, gold-embroidered robes and her jewels." I tell this story in The Boy Who Would Be King 2, because it's such a simple, beautiful lesson, worth considering, whatever your age, whoever you are. Even in the worst times, we have more than we need. Even in the worst times, we can find some way to be generous to others. The four virtues of Stoicism obligate us to do this. It takes courage to give when we have little.

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  It takes discipline to do without. It takes wisdom to know who and how to help. It takes justice to share and to be of service. That's what Marcus was doing, facing the problem, not running from it, valuing his responsibilities, not his material possessions, prioritizing his people's well-being, not his own, finding solutions, not excuses. So what can you do today? Who can you help? What good can you do for the common good? And how can you teach your kids, your employees, your neighbors to do the same?

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  And look, you can get The Boy Who Would Be King in the Daily Stoic store. And if you order from us, we'll send you the audiobook for free. It's got more than an hour of bonuses for me, about the book, about Marcus, and about a bunch of other great stuff. And we've got personalized signed copies as well. So check that out at store.dailystoic.com. But I hope you can, more importantly, find a way to do good, give something up to help others, because that's what Stoicism is about.