Ask Daily Stoic: Keeping Calm About Coronavirus

In this week's Saturday episode, Ryan discusses the coronavirus pandemic and how to deal with it like a Stoic. See 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.

• 0:05Ryan 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.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, everyone. Today's podcast sponsor is GoMacro, a mother-daughter-owned maker of vegan protein bars. GoMacro has some exciting news for fans this month. They are releasing a brand-new delicious flavor, Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Chips. It's protein-rich peanuts, fair-trade vegan chocolate, creamy, organic peanut butter, and their very own in-house-made peanut butter chips, and of course, delicious chocolate chips. As you know, I travel a bunch, and so I throw these in my bag wherever I go. I am a big fan of the GoMacro bars. I think GoMacro bars are great. I highly recommend that you try them, especially their new delicious flavor, Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Chips. You can get started today. Just

• 1:14Ryan Holiday?

  check out at www.gomacro.com. Use the promo code STOIC for 30% off plus free shipping for a limited time. That's www.gomacro.com promo code STOIC. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. I hope you are listening to this not at work, not on an airplane, not in the car. I hope you are at home, which is where most of us should be. I am sitting in my office, but I have sent all my employees home, taken my kid out of school. But I was here this morning working on an article.

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  And it was interesting that I had known that Marcus Aurelius had lived through the plague. And so I spent some time sort of researching what's now known as the Antonine Plague. So in the year 165 A.D., a plague strikes Rome. It originates from the far east, as far as China. It baffled doctors. It spread rapidly throughout the world. Government responses proved inadequate. People began with these sort of flu-like symptoms and then it escalated. It wasn't fatal in all cases. The mortality rate was about two to three percent.

• 2:33Ryan Holiday?

  And the rumor and the fear and the panic spread faster than the contagion. Sort of see where I'm going. This is remarkably similar to some of the things we're seeing now. The Antonine Plague was far more deadly than coronavirus, something like five in 20 million people died. And it lasted much more alarmingly for something like 15 years. What I found so interesting as I was reading about this is just how much it confirms this sort of Stoic idea that history is the same thing happening over and over and over again. That we like to think that we're different, that we're so advanced, that, you know, we're past, you know, how things used to be.

• 3:15Ryan Holiday?

  But, but the truth is pandemics and mysterious illnesses and incompetent leadership and, you know, sort of panic and a mob mentality. This is as old as time, right? And that human beings have sort of always gone through these things. And, you know, I say that not to discourage you, but actually sort of the exact opposite. It was, it was weird as I was reading it. It was both scary and then as you let it sit in a little bit, it's also reassuring. There's this line from Paul Harvey, the broadcaster, I, I used to listen to him in the car with my dad. He said, "In times like these, it's helpful to remember that there have always been times like these."

• 3:58Ryan Holiday?

  But I think it's worth remembering that as scary as this is, as sort of unexpected as it is, as sort of scientifically baffling as it is, it's worth remembering that actually it's, we've got a pretty... Longed and robust history for getting through things like this. And in fact, the blessing of this moment is that actually, things are far better than they could be. What Marcus Aurelius went through was worse. I was reading that smallpox killed something like 400,000 people globally every year of the 18th century. So as frustrating as things are, as scary as they are, as worried

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  as you are, I think it's a small solace to know that, look, this is the best of the possible situations. But what I also was striking to me about Marcus Aurelius was, was just the sort of the lessons that we take from it. Everyone probably expected Marcus Aurelius to flee Rome, which he did not. He stayed. You know, everyone probably expected Marcus Aurelius to sort of hunker down. In fact, this is the moment where Marcus Aurelius famously begins to sell off the imperial treasures to pay down Rome's debt, to keep the economy going. As terrifying or as uncertain as these times are, what they are also is an opportunity for heroism, for people to quietly

• 5:24Ryan Holiday?

  do the right thing, for neighbors to come together, although ideally not unnecessarily so. We should, we should try to, you know, sort of practice what they're calling social distancing. But are there elderly people in your neighborhood who shouldn't be running to the grocery store, or who need a prescription filled, and you could do that for them? You know, these are opportunities to sit back and reflect and take stock of what's important. These are opportunities to evaluate whether you've been prepared or not, whether you've been naive or not. These are opportunities, as always for the Stoics, to practice as virtues. We talk about so much here of courage and self

• 6:04Ryan Holiday?

  discipline and justice and wisdom. These are opportunities to be good, to be good to each other, to be good to your family, to be good to yourself. And so I just wanted to riff on that a little bit. And again, I, I, I hope that you're taking some time. I hope that you're taking care of yourself. Hope you're taking care of the people around you. I hope you're doing the right thing. And, uh, you know, don't freak out too much. The Stoic remembers to keep calm and carry on, to do what's safe at the same time to avoid panic and that other dangerous contagion of, of a mob mentality. So we've got a great episode for you this week. Can't wait for you to hear it. Be well, be safe, and I'll see you next week.

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  Today's reading is from the discipline of the will section of the obstacle is the way. At age 67, Thomas Edison returned home early one evening from another day at the laboratory. Shortly after dinner, a man came rushing into his house with urgent news. A fire had broken out at Edison's research and production campus a few miles away. Fire engines from eight nearby towns rushed to the scene, but they could not contain the blaze. Fueled by the strange chemicals in the various buildings, green and yellow flames shot up six and seven stories, threatening to destroy the entire empire Edison had spent his life building. Edison calmly but quickly made his way to the fire through the now

• 7:27Ryan Holiday?

  hundreds of onlookers and devastated employees looking for his son. "Go get your mother and all her friends," he told his son with childlike excitement. "They'll never see a fire like this again." "What?" "Don't worry," Edison called him. "It's all right. We've just got rid of a lot of rubbish." That's a pretty amazing reaction, but when you think about it, there's really no other response. What should Edison have done? Wept? Gotten angry? Quit? Gone home? What exactly would any of that have accomplished? You know the answer now. Nothing. So he didn't waste time indulging himself. To do great things, we have to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We've got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We

• 8:09Ryan Holiday?

  have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens. Of course, there was more than just a little rubbish in Edison's buildings. Years and years of priceless records, prototypes, and research were turned to ash. The buildings, which had been made of what was supposedly fireproof concrete, had been insured for only a fraction of their worth. Thinking they were immune to such disasters, Edison and his investors recovered for about a third of the damage. Still, Edison wasn't heartbroken, not as he could have and probably should have been. Instead, it invigorated him. As he told a reporter the next day, he wasn't too old to make a fresh start. I've been through a lot of things like this, he said. It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui. Within about three weeks, the factory was partially back up and running.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  Within a month, his men were working two shifts a day, churning out new products the world had never seen. Despite a loss of almost $1 million, more than $20 million in today's dollars, Edison would marshal enough energy to make nearly $10 million in revenue that year, 200-plus million today. He not only suffered a spectacular disaster, but he recovered and replied to it spectacularly. The next step after we discard our expectations and accept what happens to us, after understanding that certain things, particularly bad things, are outside of our control, is this. It's loving whatever happens to us and facing it with unfailing cheerfulness. It's the act of turning what we must do into what we get to do.

• 9:38Ryan Holiday?

  We put our energies and emotions and exertions where they will have real impact. This is that place. We will tell ourselves, this is what I've got to do or put up with. Well, I might as well be happy about it. It's actually, this is the Amor Fati chapter from the audiobook of The Obstacle is the Way. And I probably tell this story more than any other story in the talks that I give, because I think it's so powerful, it's so beautiful. And I was actually just reading an article that Rory McIlroy, who's read The Obstacle is the Way, this story was sort of particularly impactful for him. And he sort of retells it from time to time. The idea is that, look, instead of being sad about it, instead of being depressed about it, instead of bemoaning it, let's lean into it, let's see what we can do with it.

• 10:22Ryan Holiday?

  And I think it ties particularly well into this idea from Marcus Aurelius, actually the same image where he says that, you know, what you throw in front of a fire is fuel for the fire, that it turns it all into light and brightness. And that's what we're trying to cultivate. To me, that's what Stoicism allows us to do. And that's why I tell this story. So, thank you for listening. Hey everyone. Today's sponsor is Mac Weldon. Mac Weldon is an awesome clothing brand. They sell all sorts of great stuff. I've got a pair of sweatpants I love from them. I've got a pair of slippers from them. But most importantly, Mac Weldon values its most loyal customers, and that's why they've just created the Weldon Blue Loyalty Program.

• 11:04Ryan Holiday?

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• 11:45Ryan Holiday?

  Hello, welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. There is not a guest on this episode because we are in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown, so I am answering these questions here in my empty office. It's nice and quiet. There is a little bit too much activity for my liking out on the street, but we'll get into it. So the first question, we had some of these people tweet them in. I'm sorry, I don't have the names. But the first is, should I stay home? Should I listen? What are you doing during coronavirus? Well, I am staying home because I think it is incredibly important. This idea of

• 12:25Ryan Holiday?

  social distancing is not just some random thing that got made up. Like, I'm literally watching out my window, and there are two people in their, let's say, looks to be 60s, taking selfies. They just left a breakfast restaurant. These people have have no idea if they are infected or not. They have no idea because you can be infected and asymptomatic. They have no idea if the people in the restaurant they were just in were infected. And here they are sort of walking around, touching things, breathing on things, potentially spreading a virus that they they might not

• 13:06Ryan Holiday?

  even know that they have. It's unfortunate because they are being elderly are are more susceptible to it than someone like me. But it's not even about you. I think what we're talking about is other people. And so the Stoic idea of putting others above yourself is really, really important. And I think that's what's alarmed me so much about people's reaction. I've heard from people that I know, but, oh, I'm young, I'll be able to fight it off. Oh, I have a strong immune system. I'll be fine. You know, it's not that much worse than the flu, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, look, my eighty-plus

• 13:45Ryan Holiday?

  year old grandmother is not in the same position as you. Neither are the person who the odds say it shouldn't be a big deal for them, but it is, right? And what we've also come to understand with the alarming example out of Italy, the the original home of Stoicism, as you know, is that the hospitals can become quickly overwhelmed. If a certain percentage of people get infected, and we think it'll be a very large percentage of the population, and then a certain percentage underneath that require hospitalization, and then a certain percentage of that requires very serious medical treatment, this gets very

• 14:25Ryan Holiday?

  serious very quickly. And so when the Stoics talk about doing works for the common good, like, here's an example, I'm just watching out the window, too, the guy in the business next door to us. You know, he's there. He just interacted with a police officer walking down the street. And then now that police officer could be infected. And now that police officer is going to be less of a position as a first responder to help people in need. Because this guy, you know, sort of couldn't stay home, or at least couldn't stay steer clear of other people. And so, so by putting yourself first, by refusing to accept slight inconveniences, what you are doing is potentially endangering many, many people. It sort of ripples through the the supply chain, through life, through all sorts of different things. And so,

• 15:09Ryan Holiday?

  yes, a stoic should stay home. A stoic should listen. I got an email from a listener. He was saying, hey, you know, I live about 60 miles from New Rochelle, I, but my work isn't closed. Should I drive to and from each day? And I said, you should absolutely stay home. You are the trademark example of someone who should stay home. And he said, but what of this sort of stoic, you know, virtue of of self-discipline and moderation? You don't want to be too conservative. You don't want to overreact. In this case, the downside of overreacting is very, very low. And the upside of overreacting is very, very high. We want to take this very seriously. We have, you know, the Stoics talk about how you can't predict the future. You don't know where things are going to go.

• 15:53Ryan Holiday?

  We do have all sorts of visibility now from China and Taiwan and South Korea and Italy about what good responses look like and bad responses look like. So a stoic has to be selfless here. A stoic has to be self-disciplined here. A stoic has to be wise enough to look at the information, right? Make the right decision and ultimately do the right thing. And this is really, really important. If you are listening to this and you're on the fence, if you're listening to this, you just kind of turn down the amount of activity you've done. I'm asking you to please take this very, very seriously. Don't be selfish. Do the right thing. Which goes to the next question about what that guy was talking about, you know,

• 16:34Ryan Holiday?

  this idea of being scared or alarmed or alarmist. Is it okay for a Stoic to be scared? You know, I would say absolutely. There's this line from Faulkner I love. He says, "Don't be scared. You can't help that, but don't be afraid." And I think that's sort of the difference, right? Like, when you look at some of the math, when you look at what's happening in the world, when you look at the economy, when you look at who's in charge right now, I think it's very easy to see a lot to be fearful of. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot going wrong. It's a global pandemic and potentially infecting hundreds of millions of people, potentially killing millions of people. Again, I'm watching two elderly people who should be inside, walking down the street as if

• 17:18Ryan Holiday?

  it's nothing happening, walking, they just walk right past a much younger person who could have infected both of them. There is a lot to look at that should alarm you, that is potentially uncertain and potentially has very grave implications. The Stoics talk about this idea of fantasia, like, you have these initial impressions. You look at the odds and you're scared. Someone jumps out behind a wall and you're scared, right? You get in a car accident, someone dumps cold water on you. You have an initial emotional reaction. The Stoics don't dispute that this is a reality of the human experience. Seneca talks about how no wise person can override their biology in that instance. But what

• 18:02Ryan Holiday?

  matters is what happens next. So it's, look, there's things that I'm scared of, there's things I'm alarmed about, there's things I don't like about what we're looking at. However, I still have to smile and take care of my kids. I still have to wake up and cook them breakfast. I still have to do what I have to do. And so that's how I think a Stoic goes into this. It's okay to be scared. The important thing is to not be afraid. There's a Jewish quote I like. The world is a narrow bridge. The important thing is to not be afraid, right? If you're afraid, you're going to wobble on the narrow bridge. You're going to mess up. You shouldn't panic. Being a little afraid is okay. Panicking is worse, right? We can make this bad situation worse in how we react. So we want to be calm. We want to be rational.

• 18:44Ryan Holiday?

  We want to be clear headed, but we can't be delusional. We can't be naive. We can't pretend what's happening is not in fact happening. And so the Stoic approach to me is to look at this. This is serious. You think Marcus Aurelius wasn't scared as a smallpox epidemic was ravaging Rome? You think he wasn't scared of it getting, you know, infecting his children, infecting him? Of course he was, but he carried on. He soldiered on and he continued to do the right thing, which is, which to me is the, is the Stoic approach here. And it's what we want to focus on. And then the last question I thought I'd just sort of ring through some, some three quick questions. The last one is like, how can you help, right? If the Stoic believes in Synthetia, acts for the common good? If a Stoic believes in, in virtue, doing the right thing?

• 19:28Ryan Holiday?

  What can we do for others? I think that's what we should, we should be thinking about. And by the way, this is a good way to reduce fear or reduce the sway that fear has on us by focusing instead on how we can be of use to others. James Stockdale in that prison camp in Vietnam would use this acronym US, Unity Over Sell. So how can we, how can we be of good in this crisis? I think that's the, the next thing to think about. And so I've talked to lots of different people, people in positions of power, you know, people of great wealth, people are philanthropists. People are trying to think about how to help. And so practically, I think a couple of things are, one, as we talked about, no panicking. If you panic, you make things worse. Do not hoard or, you know, stockpile goods beyond your own needs.

• 20:13Ryan Holiday?

  I think that's a very easy thing you can do. Third, think about elderly people or susceptible people in your neighborhood, in your community, who

• 20:24Ryan Holiday?

  You can save a trip to the grocery store, or you can save a trip to pick up medicine, or who you can mow their lawn so they don't have to go outside. You can take their car to the shop. You know, what are things that they need done? That if they are done, will prevent them from having to go out and potentially be exposed? You know, don't visit your grandmother, call your grandmother, but call her a lot so she feels safe and, you know, doesn't need to go outside the house for company, right? Think about how you can be of use to other people. The last thing I would think, remember that for the Stoics, it's about what you control. So I don't control the fact that there are all these people walking up and down the sidewalk,

• 21:07Ryan Holiday?

  that, you know, Austin's bars and restaurants were packed over the weekend. You know, I saw some pictures of Tampa, Tampa Bay, like Clearwater Beach. It was filled. I can't stop those people from going out and endangering themselves and other people. But I did send a text to my mother and my father and my sister and her husband this morning that said, hey, guys, can we promise each other that we are not going to go out and interact with people? That we are going to protect the vulnerable among us? We're going to do this. And if everyone sort of focused on their circle of control, and this is something the Stoics talk about, sort of who's in your circle of concern? Who's in your sort of relationship circle? If you can influence that behavior,

• 21:49Ryan Holiday?

  if you can make good there, you can have a lot of impact. One of our friends here at Daily Stoic, Nomadic Matt, we've worked on his books, we've interviewed him for Daily Stoic. He found out that he had, that he tested positive for the coronavirus, for COVID-19, just yesterday. And part of the reasons he went to go get tested is that he was talking to my business partner, Brent Underwood, who sort of pushed him towards going to get tested. And then I called him, you know, this morning, yesterday morning, and I just talked, I wanted to talk through it with him. I wanted to see how he was. And I wanted, I had a favor to ask of him, which is that he used his platform to try to influence other people not to make some of the mistakes he did, to learn from his very serious situation that he's in, and to get some clarity on, you know, sort of.

• 22:34Ryan Holiday?

  Just explain his experiences so people could benefit from us. So if like, I think there's going to come a time where people are going to need aid. You know, there may be emergency situations where people need help. You know, who knows where this is going to go. There's going to be lots of other areas for help that's coming up. But right now, the the best thing I think you can do, take care of yourself. Commit to this idea of social distancing, be smart. And then what influence can you have over the people in your life? And if we all had an influence over a handful of these people, it would add up to a very large cumulative impact. So let's think about it that way. I think we can all make a difference. We can all have really real impact here.

• 23:17Ryan Holiday?

  And in so doing, we can flatten the curve and we can save lives. We can take an already bad situation and prevent it from getting worse. This is what our obligation is. The last thing I think to think about here as a as a stoic is the question maybe I'd ask you that Robert Greene asked me many years ago, which is, you know, is this going to be a live time for you? Or is this going to be dead time for you? How are you going to use this time? I've been using this time to write. I've been using this time to read. I've been spending time with family. My my wife and I with our son out of school. We've really been insisting on a great schedule and we've been focusing on what he can learn. And and we're we're just committing to developing certain parts of our relationship.

• 24:00Ryan Holiday?

  We are going to be better for this experience and and so can you if you decide to put in the work, if you decide to do what you need to do. So alive time, dead time, that's the question that I'm asking you. That's the question that this stressful, scary circumstance is asking for you. And if if we could emerge from this better, stronger, smarter, more wise, more compassionate, more aware. If we can learn from this, it will still be a very costly lesson. You just look at the markets today, we have, you look at the death count. We have already paid very dearly for this. I think the question is, are we going to waste that? Or are we going to make it worth what we've paid for it? So be safe, everyone. Seriously, please follow.

• 24:45Ryan Holiday?

  The advice, do this thing, you can make a difference. Zeno said that well-being is realized by small steps, but it's no small thing. If everyone can have influence over their loved ones and family members, if everyone can reduce the amount of spread of this, if they can reduce the stress on, the potential stress on supply change and hospitals, we can quite seriously save potentially many, many thousands of lives or give people many, many years left to live. So take it seriously, be well, and of course, don't be afraid. If you like the podcast that we do here and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.