Are Your Excuses Any Better? | Made For Working Together

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Are your excuses any better? They're hypocrites, they're cowards, they are plain not doing the job they were elected to do. We send people to our congresses, to our state houses, to various offices to represent us, to fight for us, to solve problems, to protect us, to protect our rights. And they don't do this because of a million reasons, because there's too much money in politics, because the news media incentivizes the opposite, because term limits, because who wants to risk their salary? We condemn this because it's frustrating. It's also convenient. Are your excuses any better than your senators? The killers sing on run for cover.

• 1:41Ryan Holiday?

  The point is, when was the last time you were courageous? Aren't you a hypocrite? Are you really doing your job? Which Marcus Aurelius reminds us is to be good, no matter what anyone else says or does. So yeah, let's call out the cowards and the corrupt, but let's also hold up a mirror. Let's make sure we're not just shouting at the world to change while quietly avoiding the work of changing ourselves. Because if we want better leaders, a better system, a better world, well, it starts with us.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  Made for working together. This is today's entry, July 21 in the Daily Stoic. And the quote comes to us from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 8:12. Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you have been made by nature for the purpose of working with others. Whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping, and it's our own natural purpose that is more fitting and satisfying. If a dog spends all day in bed, your bed most likely, that's fine. It's just being a dog. It doesn't have anywhere to be, no other obligations other than being itself. But according to the Stoics, we have a higher obligation as humans, not to the gods, but to each other.

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  What gets us out of bed each morning, even if we fight it like Marcus sometimes did, is to render works held in common. Civilization and country are great projects we build together and have been building together with our ancestors for millennia. We are made for cooperation with each other. So if you need an extra boost to get out of bed this morning, if you need something more than caffeine can offer, use this. People are depending on you. Your purpose is to help us render this great work together, and we're waiting, and we're excited for you to show up. Let's look at the Hays translation of that real quick. Hays says, as part of 8:12, let's see here.

• 3:51Ryan Holiday?

  Hays says, "So when you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that what defines a human being is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep, and it's the characteristic activity that's the more natural one, more innate and more satisfying." Let's look at the great Robin Waterfield translation in his annotated edition, which I highly recommend and enjoy quite a bit. We pull up 8:12. He says, "Whenever you find it difficult to wake up, remind yourself that doing socially useful work is proper to your constitution and your humanity, while sleeping is something you share with irrational animals as well. And anything that's proper to an individual's nature has a greater affinity to him and is second nature to him, and moreover, is more refreshing."

• 4:36Ryan Holiday?

  I love that. I think the idea socially useful work, right? So when the Stoics talk about politics, they don't think they always mean running for office. And when they talk about the common good, I don't think they necessarily always mean charity. They mean socially useful work. Are you contributing to society? Are you making the world a better place? There's a sign over on this track that I like to run on that was put up by Hollywood Henderson. I think I've said this story before, but he put up a sign that says, leave this place better than you found it. And I think that's a great rule for life. It's interesting, though, to me, Marcus talks a lot about struggling to get out of bed in the morning. It's clearly a common theme. And then he also talks a lot

• 5:19Ryan Holiday?

  about working with difficult people. So maybe the difficult people are like, oh, I gotta go do this again, you know? He was an introvert. He preferred philosophy, preferred ideas to people necessarily. But he knew that it was inescapable, that as a human being, as a philosopher, as a leader, as a politician, his job was to work with these difficult people, to find a way to contribute, to find a way to make them better, to find a way to put them to productive or socially useful ends. And that's what we have to remember today. Obviously, you're up or you wouldn't be listening to this. But how are you going to provide socially useful work today? How are you going to make do with difficult people? How are you going

• 6:03Ryan Holiday?

  to put up with them? As Marcus really says, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, that even the famous obstacles way passage is about that, is about dealing with the people who obstruct us and annoy us and frustrate us, and finding a way to make a positive contribution to the world in spite of, with, through, because of them, for them. That's what we're here for. That's the work that we're here for. That's our purpose. Animals can sleep around. You know, maybe some people aren't going to seize that potential, but that's their call. We're not going to reject the opportunity. We're going to take advantage of it. We're going to make a positive contribution, a socially useful contribution.

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  Big or small, you don't have to be Winston Churchill or Gandhi to make the world a little better, to leave this place a little better than you found it. Be nice to someone, write something, help someone, teach your kids something, pick up trash that you see by the side of the road, vote, right? Contribute to a cause, donate time, whatever it is. Do some socially useful work today, make a positive contribution, and realize that this is what you got out of bed for. This is what you are put here for. This is the work of a human being, the Stoics would say. So go to it, seize it, love it, appreciate it, fucking crush it, man. That's my message for today. I wish you all the best. Talk soon.

• 7:33Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say, we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything, I just wanted to say, thank you.