Do Less

Unlike so many of the other philosophical schools, the Stoics were doers. The Epicureans might have been content to play in their gardens and the Cynics might have believed that most of the obligations of society were a scam, but the Stoics were responsible and public-minded. Marcus Aurelius lead the empire. Seneca was a writer and a political advisor and he ran the many estates his family owned. These were busy people. But they also understood the importance of work-life balance, and were early practitioners of what the author Greg McKeown calls essentialism. They worked hard, but they knew it was impossible and self-defeating to try to do it all. As Seneca wrote: “We will benefit from that helpful precept of Democritus, showing us that tranquility lies in not undertaking tasks, either in public or private, that are either numerous or greater than our resources.”Each of us needs to take the time to set our priorities straight and to understand our limits. What’s the most important thing in our lives? What’s the next most important thing? What are we going to say no to so we can focus on those things? What are we going to say no to (or yes to) in order to protect our personal happiness and peace? The key isn’t to always do more, more, more, but sometimes to do less so that we can do more of what we care most about. P. S. “If you seek tranquillity, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential,” Marcus said. We set up the Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge to help you do just that—21 actionable challenges to help you do less and do it better. Learn more and sign up here! 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.

• 0:06Ryan 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. Do Less. Unlike so many of the other philosophical schools, the Stoics were doers. The Epicureans might have been content to play in their gardens, and the cynics might have believed that most of the obligations of society were a scam, but the Stoics were responsible and public-minded. Marcus Aurelius led the empire. Seneca was a writer and a

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  political advisor, and he ran the many estates his family owned. These were busy people, no question, but it's important to see that they also understood the importance of work-life balance and were early practitioners of what the author Greg Macowan called "essentialism." They worked hard, but they knew it was impossible and self-defeating to try to do it all. As Seneca wrote, "We will benefit from that helpful precept of Democritus, showing us that tranquility lies in not undertaking tasks, either in public or private, that are either numerous or greater than our resources. Each of us needs to take the time to set our priorities and try to understand our limits." What's the most important thing

• 1:30Ryan Holiday?

  in our lives? What's the next most important thing? What are we going to say no to so we can focus on those things? What are we going to say no to or yes to in order to protect our personal happiness and peace? The key isn't always to do more and more and more, but sometimes to do less so that we can do more well.

• 1:51Ryan Holiday?

  I've got a question for you. Are you really challenging yourself? Are you pushing yourself to be better? Or are you stuck in your comfort zone? So many of us are stuck. So many of us know we are leaving potential on the table. And so that's one of the reasons we've created this new 21 day daily Stoic challenge. We're calling it the Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge. It's going to help you break free from bad habits, from bad choices, from bad routines, from bad thinking. It's gonna be awesome. You can check it out at dailystoic.com/challenge. And you can do the 21 day challenge alongside me. I'm going to be doing it every day. I'll be participating in the Slack channel, the SPAR group. We'll be talking about it. It's gonna be awesome. The previous challenges we have done have changed my life in a whole bunch of ways.

• 2:35Ryan Holiday?

  I cannot recommend it highly enough. Dailystoic.com/challenge. But there are only a few days left. You have to sign up by July 7, 2019, 11:59 PM, or you're out. So check it out. Dailystoic.com/challenge.