Haven’t You Done That Before?

It is certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clients. We hear of a man who has been leading a second life, even starting a second family. We hear of a woman who commits an unspeakable crime. These gross violations of morality and law do exist. They are things we would never do, we’d never even consider doing them. However, the truth is that most of the wrongs committed day to day are done by ordinary people in ordinary ways. Even most of the wrongs done to us are not done with any particular malice, but instead stem from ignorance or fatigue or simple selfishness. Moreover, most of them are mistakes we have made ourselves in the distant or not so distant past. As Seneca writes:“A good look at ourselves will make us more temperate if we ask…‘Haven’t we ourselves also done something like that? Haven’t we gone astray in the same way? Does condemning these things really benefit us?’”When we realize that more errors are relatable and human, we are more likely to understand and forgive. We will not take personally a slight or a screw-up we have been guilty of ourselves—because we remember that when we did it, it was not personal or even intentional. When we recall how dumb we were when we were young, we won’t be so quick to judge the generation coming after us. When we consider all the current beliefs we will be judged for by that generation, perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of the older generation in front of us. We’ve all messed up. We will all continue to mess up. Does it really benefit us—is it really fair—to go around condemning people for mistakes we’ve made ourselves? For going astray as we have gone astray? No. It doesn’t. 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. Haven't you done that before? It's certainly true that people can do some awful things to each other. We hear of a trusted representative who is stealing from their clients. We hear of a man who has been leading a second life, even starting a second family. We hear of a woman who commits an unspeakable crime. These gross violations of morality and law do exist. They are things

• 0:50Ryan Holiday?

  that we would never do. We would never even consider doing them. However, the truth is that most of the wrongs committed day to day are done by ordinary people in ordinary ways. Even most of the wrongs done to us are not done with any particular malice, but instead stem from ignorance, or fatigue, or simple selfishness. Moreover, most of them are mistakes we have made ourselves in the distant, or not-so-distant, past. As Seneca writes, "A good look at ourselves will make us more temperate if we ask." Haven't we ourselves also done something like that? Haven't we gone astray in the same way? Does condemning these things really benefit us? When we realize that most errors are relatable

• 1:33Ryan Holiday?

  and human, we are more likely to understand and forgive. We will not take personally a slight or a screw-up we have been guilty of ourselves, because we will remember that when we did it, it was not personal or even intentional. We can recall how dumb we were when we were young, and we won't be so quick to judge the generation coming after us. When we consider all the current beliefs we will be judged for by that generation, perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of the older generation in front of us. We've all messed up. We will all continue to mess up. Does it really benefit us? Is it really fair to go around condemning people for mistakes we've made ourselves, for going astray as we've gone astray? No, it doesn't.

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  If you like the podcast that we do here and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  Thank you.