Do You Really Like This?

People say they love learning. And sure, they pick up books and go to museums and watch documentaries, and yes, they sat through their college courses. But this is only superficial evidence of a true student. There’s a joke from Churchill where he said that yeah, he likes learning, but he hates being taught. Most of us are like that: We like learning when it’s easy, when it doesn’t challenge us. We like it when it comes neatly packaged in a book or in a YouTube video. But everything else? We ignore that. 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.

• 0:03Ryan 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:25Ryan Holiday?

  Do you really like this? People say they love learning, and sure, they pick up books and go to museums and watch documentaries. And yes, they sat through their college courses. But this is only superficial evidence of a true student.

• 0:38Ryan Holiday?

  There's a joke from Churchill where he said that, "Yeah, he likes learning, but he hates being taught." Most of us are like that. We like learning when it's easy, when it doesn't challenge us. We like it when it comes neatly packaged in a book or a YouTube video. But everything else, we ignore that. Marcus Aurelius was seen leaving the palace as an old man. "Where are you going?" he was asked. "I'm off to see Sextus the philosopher," he said, "to learn that which I do not yet know." It was remarkable, they said at the time, that this wise, powerful man was still taking up his tablets and going to school like a kid. And that is rare enough. But rarer still is the kind of person who, at that age, is still learning the lessons that life is trying to teach them. How many of us are good at spotting the feedback that's saying, "Hey, this is not working for you"?

• 1:23Ryan Holiday?

  How many of us make the same mistakes over and over, have been stuck in the same unproductive patterns for years, refusing to be taught by experience? How many of us are actively looking at models? As Seneca said, "We must choose ourselves a Cato." How many of us are being instructed by their example as we face new situations? How often are our beliefs changing, being updated to fit new information as it's provided by what we witness and undergo? Learning is so much more than what happens in books, so much more than facts and figures. It's more than just what we seek out or want to hear. Life is a classroom. Experience is a teacher. Are we willing to be taught?