Don't Make Life Tougher

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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 at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  Don't make it tougher.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  Life is hard. There are floods and fires, tyrants and train wrecks, plagues that are so unpredictable, people who are so frustrating. And of course, fortune always does, as she pleases. We don't control any of that. We don't control what happens to us. We don't control how hard life is for people we care about. But you know what we do control? We control whether or not we make things harder for others. As we celebrate Pride Month here in the US, it is a good time to ask ourselves, "Am I making life harder for others?" Imagine how difficult it would be to be born into a world where you feel like you don't quite fit in, where you're not sure who you are, and where you have a very real sense

• 1:13Ryan Holiday?

  that some people, perhaps even your own parents, will treat you differently for simply being true to yourself. Imagine what it must have been like to be a gay person born in the 1950s, when even an accusation was enough to wreck your career and carefully constructed life. Imagine how disorienting it would be if your gender was even a question you needed to consider for more than a second. We can go through 1,000 other thought exercises, but we don't need to. The point is, it's tough. Maybe that's not your struggle. Maybe you have plenty of your own struggles. But as Marcus Aurelius reminds us, "Any harm to the bee harms the hive." And in fact, Marcus Aurelius's and Junius Rusticus's example

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  is an even more powerful statement. The persecutions of the Christians, which was then a fledgling and misunderstood religion by the Stoics, is a terrible black mark on the philosophy. If you can't celebrate and be accepting of how others live, you can at least strive not to make their lives harder. You can at least leave them alone. Remember, it is possible not to have an opinion. It is possible not to pass judgment. It is possible to have your view on something and let others have theirs. It is possible to imagine how tough life already is for people, and it is possible not to make life tougher for them.

• 2:40Ryan 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.