Don’t Worry What They Tell Themselves When You’re Away | There is Philosophy in Everything

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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. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  "Don't worry what they say when you're away." It would be wonderful if people were admired for doing the right thing, if we respected people of character and honor, if we appreciated differences in uniqueness and people who marched to their own beat. But of course, we don't, at least usually not in their own lifetimes. Cato, it's worth remembering, was hated in his own time. Diogenes, we can't forget, was in exile. Socrates is beloved and celebrated now, but what did Athens think of all his questioning and his peculiarities? They sentenced him to death for it. Cato knew that he was walking along a lonely road. He prepared for it, practiced making himself indifferent to other people's opinions, famously walking barefoot and bareheaded

• 1:27Ryan Holiday?

  just to get used to drawing judgmental eyes. From meditations, it's clear that Marcus Aurelius struggled with the fact that his job came with criticism and doubts and even angry mobs. Yet, that's what he was using meditations for, to steel himself against these jeers and attacks, reminding himself that what mattered is whether he thought something was right, whether he was being true to himself. "We can't trouble ourselves with what other people say about us when we're away," as the song goes. "We can't expect or even hope to be universally loved or understood. In fact, we should be prepared for the opposite, because no one who ever did anything new or difficult did it without criticism or doubters. We have to cultivate our own strong sense of values and virtues. We

• 2:12Ryan Holiday?

  have to honor this sense and follow it. We have to be who we are, not what they want us to be. Whether the crowd appreciates us for this at the time or later is not our concern."

• 2:33Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. There is philosophy in everything. This is the March 24th entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. Holding the hardcover here, maybe you like audiobooks, you want to listen to the audiobook, you can grab the leather bound edition in the Daily Stoic store, you can grab an ebook version if you want. But today's quote is from Epictetus's Discourses. We had our streak of many Marx realist entries in a row, and now I think we're on an equally long Epictetus streak. Epictetus says, "Eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry,

• 3:18Ryan Holiday?

  have children, get politically active, suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbor, or companions. Show us these things so that we can see that you truly have learned from the philosophers." That's Epictetus's Discourses 321. Plutarch, a Roman biographer, as well as an admirer of the Stoics, although not always he had his disagreements, he didn't begin his study of the greats of Roman literature until late in life. But as he recounts in his biography of Demosthenes, he was surprised at how quickly it all came at him. He wrote, "It wasn't so much the words that brought me into a full understanding of events as that somehow I had a personal experience of the events

• 4:00Ryan Holiday?

  that allowed me to follow closely the meaning of the words." This is what Epictetus means about the study of philosophy. Study, yes, but go live your life as well. It's the only way that you'll actually understand what any of it means. More importantly, it's only from your actions and choices over time that it will be possible to see whether you took any of the teachings to heart. Be aware of that today when you're going to work, going on a date, deciding whom to vote for, calling your parents in the evening, waving to your neighbor as you walk to your door, tipping the delivery man, saying goodnight to someone you love. All of that is philosophy. All of it is experience that brings meaning to the words. You know, there's another quote from Plutarch, he was talking about Socrates,

• 4:43Ryan Holiday?

  and he said, you know, Socrates didn't teach as he sat down at his desk and lectured his students. He taught. And how he lived his life, how he served in the army, how he walked through the marketplace, how he talked to his wife, how he talked to his children. He taught his students, he said, as he drank the hemlock and died. Socrates wasn't talking about his philosophy. He was, as Epictetus said, embodying his philosophy. Didn't talk about it. He was about it, right? Don't talk about it, be about it. But what I like from this, what I think is important that we realize with the Stoics is that the philosophers weren't these kind of, you know,

• 5:24Ryan Holiday?

  abstract, theoretical people. The Stoics were living their lives. They were engaged in the world. They were philosophers, not in the classroom, not on the rostrum. They weren't philosophers writing their works. They were philosophers in how they raised their kids, how they dealt with being tired from a long dusty day of travel. They were philosophers in disputes, philosophers when they were sick, philosophers visiting their family over the holidays,

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  right? Philosophy was something you applied to life, but not, not in the big, magnificent, heroic moments, but the regular, the ordinary, the simply human moments. And that this is what really tests us. This is what really challenges us. But this is also the opportunity. You know, when Marx really says the obstacle is the way, he isn't actually talking about major crises. He's talking about obnoxious people who are getting in our way. There's another great quote, I'm forgetting who said it, but I know I just put it in the new edition of The Obstacle is the Way I've been working on. She said something like, anyone can be

• 6:41Ryan Holiday?

  great in a crisis. It takes power and strength and fortitude to be resilient and philosophical in the ordinary, everydairiness of life. That's the challenge. That's why I call it the daily Stoic. Something you apply every day in big situations.

• 7:02Ryan Holiday?

  And little ones alike, ordinary and extraordinary, as a family member, as a friend, as a spouse, as a parent, as an academic, as a mechanic, as emperor, as a slave. That's what Stoicism is really about. And I think it's a, it's a worthy reminder. And I just, I think it's such a wonderful, cool thing to think of that, that idea from Epictetus, making its way to Marcus Aurelius, and then him having to put it in practice. How different all their lives were. Anyways, that's my Stoic message for today. I'll leave you there and talk to you all very soon.