Err On This Side | Ask Daily Stoic

One should understand, or at least empathize with, the difficult position a politician quite often finds themselves these days with the proliferation of divisive, hot-button political issues. Take Utah’s governor Spencer Cox and transgender youth in sports. Cox couldn’t easily decide what side to take on the issue–or at least he didn’t immediately act when the subject came before state lawmakers. Instead, Cox sought counsel from trusted mentors. He read books to understand both sides as best he could. He read books about figures he admired, who had to make tough choices in analogous situations. Then, after much circumspection, he decided to vote with his conscience:“I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion.”📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder. ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook 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 read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street. Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy we're all trying to follow.

• 0:49Ryan Holiday?

  Err on this side. A politician can't decide what side to take on a hot divisive political issue. They seek counsel from trusted mentors. They seek books to understand both sides as best they can. They read books about figures they admire who had to make tough choices. But in the end, they must decide to vote their conscience. "I struggle to understand so much of it, and the science is conflicting," one politician said. "When in doubt, however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy, and compassion." That's what Utah Governor Spencer Cox said after he vetoed a ban on transgender students in youth sports. Now, perhaps you vehemently disagree with this decision,

• 1:33Ryan Holiday?

  though it's worth reflecting on why something that affects so few people elicits such strong response. But we can all benefit from applying this general rule. Let's go back to a moment in ancient Rome that many Christians might know about. In 165 A.D., a philosopher named Justin Martyr is arrested after a disturbance. Justin had dabbled in Stoic philosophy and then converted to Christianity, which was then a crime against the Roman state. Given a chance to repent by a judge, he declined, and so he was sentenced to a gruesome death by flogging. That judge was Rusticus, Marcus Aurelius's philosophy teacher, the one who introduced him to the writings of Epictetus, a slave. What the Romans knew and believed about religion was, at that point,

• 2:17Ryan Holiday?

  conflicted and contradictory and difficult to understand. The concept of freedom of worship was foreign and strange to them. The law was clear and heavy. But still, Risticus could have been merciful. He could have seen the gross mismatch between his enormous power and this single person who thought and lived differently. He could have been kind, as Seneca's brother Gaia was to St. Paul. He could have erred on the side of live and let live. Alas, he did not. He could not and would not bring himself to make the admittedly more difficult decision to be fairer and kinder, more just than was required by the letter of the law. And this tension between what is just and what is the law has always existed. But it is of particular relevance today with the bevy of laws related to personal liberty

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  being passed in state legislators and adjudicated in the highest courts. The solution to the puzzle, the sword that cuts this Gordia knot, is, as it has always been, to live and let live. A modern prescription, as we have said recently, that we would all do better at following for the benefit of everyone.

• 3:25Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, this is Brian Holiday. Welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. You send us questions about Stoicism. I answer to the best of my ability. I give you some of my personal advice, and then, of course, some advice from the Stoics. So our first question today is, according to Stoicism, we must work on things that we can control and not on the results. But when one is trying to be ambitious and sets goals, most of the goals are result-oriented. How can I be ambitious and not worry about the results at the same time? This is a great question, because it is kind of a paradox in Stoicism, but there's some really good advice for Marcus Aurelius on this. So he talks about how...

• 4:07Ryan Holiday?

  To tie your ambition to external results is to hand your sanity over to other people. It's like this is a recipe for misery. What you want to do is focus your goals on things you control. So I can only really talk from experience here, but when I think about this as a writer, my goal is not to write a book that sells a certain amount of copies. My goal is not to hit the bestseller list or to win certain awards. My, my goal is to write the best possible book that I can. Obviously, I, I want to sell lots of copies. I want to reach lots of people. I'm, I'm not averse to receiving awards or recognition, but Ego is the Enemy came out.

• 4:50Ryan Holiday?

  It should have debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, but it did not. Stillness is the key came out and it debuted at number one. Am I calling one a success and the other failure? Even though by the same objective criteria, they both deserve to be in similar places? No, I think stillness is better, not because it hit number one, but because I know that I was better as a writer. I put in more work. I put in more energy. I didn't leave any stone unturned, that it was recognized, that it externally noticed fantastic. But that's not why it was better. I'm focusing my goals always on the parts of it that I control. Think of a football player. If your goal is to win a Super Bowl, it's great, but what if somebody drops a pass in the end zone?

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  Your goal should be to have the best season you can, to do as much as you can for the team, to think about it in that sense. So I think, I think the Stoics try to make it, it's not that they're goal averse. This is also kind of an eastern concept, but it's when we're thinking about goals. It's like, how do we make the goal primarily about things that we control? That things that are up to us and to use Epictetus's term. So that's how I think about it in my, in my own career. I want to get better. I always want to improve. I always want to be making progress, but I don't want that progress to be up to other people necessarily. I want that to be extra. I want that to be bonus. And, and actually, one of the things I'm proudest of, which is actually kind of

• 6:20Ryan Holiday?

  part of my goal on Stillness is the Key, was to be more indifferent to the external result. So my first book, which came out about 10 years ago, trust me, I'm lying. Let's say I was 10% convinced I did a great job and 90% looking to see how it debuted on The Best Soloist. I think it debuted on The Wall Street Journalist. Now, I would say by the time Stillness came out 10 years later, or nine books later, I, it was precisely flipped. I was 90% inwardly focused on what I controlled and 10% looking for that external validation. And I think that's a stronger position to be in, and that's a better way

• 7:01Ryan Holiday?

  to live. All right. So somebody writes in, "My sister has a bit of depression. I've been trying to encourage her to learn and practice Stoicism. One day, I introduced Memento Mori to her, asking her to stop paying attention to criticism and trivial matters. And she asked me, "So if I'm going to die one day, why should I work at all? Why shouldn't I go and play and enjoy my life?" She's not happy at work. And so, how does Stoicism and Memento Mori answer this question? First off, I would say, if you're talking to a depressed person who's not feeling great about themselves, letting them know they're gonna die is maybe not the best pick-me-up. But I, I think what the Stoics would say is not, they, they might not actually disagree with your sister. She's, you're telling

• 7:42Ryan Holiday?

  her, "Look, life is finite. You go, you don't get to do this forever." It's not, "Shouldn't I go and play and enjoy my life? You should absolutely enjoy your life, and you should realize that life is too short to be spent at a job, living away, living in a place that does not make you happy, that is not getting the best out of you." So I do think part of Memento Mori is designed to provoke the exact question that she's asking. I think it's, it's not, "Oh, you're gonna die, so let's go do heroin. Let's have an orgy," as I've said before. It's, "Let's make sure I'm fully living this moment." And I think when I feel a little bit depressed, that's something I think about. I go, "Look, I'm not gonna be here that much longer, so I'm not gonna sit around

• 8:26Ryan Holiday?

  Feeling sorry for myself. I'm not going to whip myself. I'm going to get out and get moving and go do something. I'm going to try to make a positive step towards where I want to end up. That's what I control. That's up to me. That's what I want to do. So it's not that we think about death to stop paying attention to criticism. It's that we stop, we start paying attention to death so that criticism is put in perspective. So the frustrations with our job are put in perspective. The problems that we have are put in perspective. And what comes out of that perspective is a sense that life is short. You know, the things that a lot of people think matter don't really matter.

• 9:09Ryan Holiday?

  And we should hone in on, home in on what we really do think matters to us and what really is important to us. So death is not what you want to talk to a depressed person about. That's a little glib. And, and, and can be, you know, maybe the exact wrong thought you want to be planting in their head. But memento mori for the rest of us, for people who are frustrated or unhappy, should help put some of our issues into contrast and help us make decisions that otherwise might be a little difficult.

• 9:43Ryan Holiday?

  Someone is asking, what does the inner citadel look like and how is it created and cultivated and used? So the inner citadel is a concept that comes to us from Marcus Aurelius.

• 9:55Ryan Holiday?

  Is this book really good? It's by Pierre Hidot. It's called The Inner Citadel. He, let me see if there's anything I can read here.

• 10:07Ryan Holiday?

  So the inner citadel for the Stoics is the idea that even if you're thrown in prison, even if you lose everything, even if you're attacked and persecuted, even if, you know, what life is throwing at you seems overwhelming. What you have inside you is this sort of indomitable spirit, this fortitude. Remember, that's, that's one of the big virtues in Stoicism, this sort of courage or fortitude. And we cultivate this, I think, in a variety of ways. We cultivate it by, by meditating on the philosophical principles of Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius is not just writing these things in meditation for fun. He's writing them to toughen himself up, to remind himself of what counts and what matters.

• 10:51Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics also cultivated that inner citadel by going out and doing difficult things. Marcus Aurelius is wrestling, he's boxing, you know, he's hunting, he's doing physical activities, we might call them manly activities. But the point is, he's active. It's not just this sort of, you know, mind or soul thing. It really is cultivated in doing what the Stoics call hard winter training. So this is why, you know, Seneca is jumping in and taking cold plunges. This is why he's, you know, fasting or eating, you know, rugged fare. He's toughening himself up for the world. So the inner citadel happens that way. And then I think that the core defense of the inner citadel is probably

• 11:34Ryan Holiday?

  that idea from Epictetus, like, we don't control what happens, we control what we respond. What's up to us is our thoughts, our opinions, our emotions, the story we tell ourselves. So we realize, oh, they can do all these things to me. You know, Epictetus says, you can bind up my leg, but, but I will still go on, like, being philosophical, I will still, you can't bind up my will. And that actually happened to Epictetus. Like, he was a slave, his cruel slave owner broke his leg. Epictetus knew that people could do things to you physically, but no one can touch what's inside of you. No one can make

• 12:16Ryan Holiday?

  you go against what you believe. No one can force you to change your opinion. No event is so bad that you have to say it is bad. Ultimately, we control that. So the inner citadel, to me, is kind of made up of those things. It's the training, it's the exercising, and then it's remembering that inside of you, things can't touch the soul, as the Stoics would say. You have this sort of thing inside you that's totally up to you, that even the worst situations in life can't touch. So, thank you for listening to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. Send in your questions to [email protected]. I like the more personal questions. If you want to talk to us about specific things you're struggling

• 12:58Ryan Holiday?

  with, specific questions, passages you have, you know, questions about inside Stoicism, if there's things you want us to talk about, shoot us a note. I want to talk to you about it. Thanks for watching. Talk soon.

• 13:12Ryan 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.