Pod Insights The Daily Stoic Premium (🔓) How To Make Better Use Of Your Time | Ask Daily Stoic About this episode Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery that doubled as a local hang-out. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 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
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Ryan 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.
0:50 Ryan Holiday? How to Make Better Use of Your Time
0:55 Ryan Holiday? Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a clothing store that doubled as a local hangout. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time that Truman gave him a list of 10 books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Al Truman had said, "You'll find a good deal in there about how to make use of every minute of your day and a lot of horse sense about people." It's reminiscent of one of the formative scenes in Marcus Aurelius's life. As a young man, he was given a copy of the Lectures of Epictetus. He would read through it again and again on his way to becoming one of the
1:39 Ryan Holiday? great kings of history. He would thank his teacher, Rusticus, for changing his life with that single recommendation. Albert Ridge's life was also changed by the books he was recommended. He learned a lot about people and how to make the most of his time, just as Truman had promised. He started going to law school at night and then went on to be a United States Circuit Judge under President Kennedy. From the neighborhood grocery store to the US federal court, from a promising young boy to the head of the Roman Empire, from a farm in Missouri to the presidency of the United States, that's the power of reading. As Truman also said, "Not all readers are leaders, but there is nothing better to start you on the path to leadership than reading great books."
2:24 Ryan Holiday? I know my life was personally changed by a similar recommendation. I went to a conference, someone said, hey, you should read this book. I ended up getting turned on to the Stoics. We would not be, you would not be listening to this right now were it not for that recommendation, were it not for hundreds and hundreds of recommendations that I've gotten over the years. And I'd like to think that other people's lives wouldn't be the same without some of the recommendations I've given. And I know, as I've heard the feedback, that our Read to Lead Challenge that we did here at Daily Stoic has had a similar impact on people. We actually just ran through the course again. We made a bunch of awesome new videos and Q and As for you. If you want to build a reading practice, if you want to be a leader who reads, or if you
3:05 Ryan Holiday? want to be a reader to become a leader, well, as Truman was saying, well, I can't recommend this course enough. The Daily Stoic Read to Lead Challenge, it's great. I think you'll love it. It's one of the best and far and away, one of the most popular things we've ever done. You can check that out at dailystoic.com/readtolead. You can also just check it out at [email protected] . Or if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, you get not just that course for free and all of our courses for free, including the upcoming New Year, New You Challenge, but you get a bunch of awesome new bonuses that I think you will really like, including a cloth bound edition of the best of meditations we do each year. Check that out at dailystoiclife.com.
3:51 Speaker 01 So yeah, I had a question about this morning's reading and kind of focusing on worst case scenarios of things. With military training, it's like you kind of, that's what you do. You plan contingencies. And then that relates more now in a different environment as more of a pessimist. And you get out of the present moment because all you're doing is focusing on the future. And what are you going to do? What is the next move? What is like a healthy way to allow yourself to continue to stay in the present, but also be prepared for things that are going to happen?
4:24 Ryan Holiday? Yeah, Seneca says, "The only inexcusable thing for a military commander to say is, 'I didn't think it would happen.'" Right? Napoleon says, "A general should ask themselves three times a day, 'What would I do if the enemy appeared here, here, here?'" So, on the one hand, yes, you're preparing, but I don't think that Napoleon is trying to get his generals into a state of nervous agitation, because that itself is kind of a form of distraction, right, and vulnerability. So, the idea of thinking about the things that could happen,
5:04 Ryan Holiday? to me, is not the same as anxiety. You're thinking about the plan, you're thinking about the possibilities, you're making plans, or it may just be thinking, "Hey, this could go horribly, horribly wrong." And let's say you're driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and it's supposed to take eight hours, but you know, hey, it could, it could take 15 hours because of traffic. You don't really necessarily have to have a plan for that, other than, "It could take 15 hours, and I'm not going to be bent out of shape if it takes longer than I expect." And in fact, part of what I'm doing here is just getting rid of the expectations, like, "It is going to be what it's going to be, and
5:47 Ryan Holiday? you're gonna, you're gonna respond to it." So me, to me, this idea of premeditatio molorum is partly just, like, "Hey, I'm not in control here, and I've got to be prepared to respond, and to be flexible, and to be adaptive. And if my expectations or my entitlements are too strong, I'm, I'm gonna put myself in a vulnerable position." At the same time, your, your, Seneca also talks about not being worried about all the troubles ahead. You know, he says, he says, "Some things are gonna happen for sure, and so don't worry about them until they happen. You know, some things are never gonna happen, so don't worry about them. And some things have already happened, so there's no point
6:30 Ryan Holiday? in worrying about them." Right? And he says, you know, "Often, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. We, we, we suffer for things that are never gonna happen." So I do think it's a balancing act, and someone mentioned the, the Tim Ferriss TED Talk about Stoicism, where he talks about fear setting. I think he has, he has a nice sort of through line through this as well. That, that talk is definitely worth reading.
6:54 Speaker 01 So when we're properly doing it, we're actually staying in the moment and just ready for anything. It's not.
6:59 Ryan Holiday? I think that's right.
7:00 Speaker 01 Okay, okay, cool.
7:02 Ryan Holiday? Yeah. Uh, Magan? Magan?
7:06 Speaker 02 I had a question about, kind of tackling on a couple of topics we talked about yesterday, dealing with regret or guilt. My question was in regards to how you would actually apply, for example, the principles to it. Like if you know, for example, you willingly or unwillingly harmed someone, now you have to go associate with that. I know just from reading a little bit about stoicism, you would approach that with, okay, it happened, I'll fix it and I'll move on by not doing it again. My question would be in actually applying that. I know anytime you change with anything, there's a little bit of resistance, just like internally, maybe like there's the emotional difficulty of sticking to that. So my question to you would be, just in general, applying all of these beliefs,
7:49 Speaker 02 would you just, if you like muscle memories, like you just in the beginning, it's going to be resistance, but just continue to say, you know what, hey, this is it, even though I don't feel like it, I know this is right. Over time, your feeling would be more in line with what you believe? That's kind of like the approach you should take?
8:05 Ryan Holiday? I, I think that's, I think that's well put. I like that. I, I would also say too, when I think about guilt,
8:11 Ryan Holiday? is the guilt for you or for them? You know, um, so you did something bad, you harmed someone. Now you feel guilty, so you feel worse, yes. But is the guilt contributing to making them feel any better? Is the guilt improving the situation in any way? Or is it just kind of a, a pity party or a distraction from, you know, the problem in front of you that could, that could, uh, you know, be improved by some sort of active engagement, uh, with, with the events at hand?
8:44 Speaker 02 Great.
8:46 Ryan Holiday? Joshua.
8:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, can you hear me?
8:48 Ryan Holiday? I can.
8:50 Speaker 03 So I think this is a prevalent question among like, since we're in a time of information overload. I've been studying Stoicism for like a month and a half, and I've read Meditations and I'm reading letters from a Stoic. How do we combat that feeling of like constantly needing to read the next book or like constantly needing to gather information versus just being like content and still diving deep into our studies?
9:17 Ryan Holiday? Yes, it's a great question. I have a chapter about this in Stillness is the Key about sort of managing your information diet. It's something I think about a lot. You know, Seneca himself, I don't know if you've gotten to the letter yet, but he talks about lingering on the works of the master thinkers. So it's not about reading as many books as you possibly can. He talks about, you know, so you like drinking wine and you try to drink as much as possible. He's like, okay, what are you, a barrel? You know, what are you, a sieve that the wine is just pouring through? And I think this is true with books. You know, I love books. You know, I'm surrounded by books. I'm literally talking to you from a bookstore. My career is writing books. But when I read, I try to ask myself, am I going to use this in some way? I try to
10:00 Ryan Holiday? read books. I mean, there's obviously a role for entertainment in books and pleasure in books, and I get that too. But when I read, I'm trying to read things that make me better as a human being. And that often means rereading or reading slowly. It's not a race. You know, you don't win. It's not something you're trying to rush through. It's supposed to be a meditative philosophical experience, right? And Marcus talks about the idea of leisure in meditations. And you know, the root word of leisure in Greece is school. It's supposed to be, so I like the idea that that school is leisure and leisure is school. That, again,
10:43 Ryan Holiday? this isn't, this isn't a race. You're not cramming for a test. You're trying to, you're trying to get better.
10:52 Ryan Holiday? Troy.
10:54 Speaker 04 Actually, to Joshua's point, I was gonna say it took me 18 months to get through meditations. And I got teased a lot. People like, "It's a 99-page book." I was like, "Yeah, dude, but when you're reading it one line at a time, it'll take you a minute." Thank you, man, for doing this. I have a question about 3:6 specifically, and I'm pulling from the... I think this is the translation that you dig.
11:15 Speaker 04 The last part where he says, "But that which is useful is the better. Well, then it is useful to you as a rational being. Keep it to... Keep to it, but if it is only useful to you as an animal, say so and maintain your judgment without arrogance." And I didn't know if I was interpreting that correctly. I was curious what your interpretation of that was. Does that mean that sometimes you go, "All right, I know that I've been digging into this, and I want to be the best version of myself, and I want to hold to the four virtues, but for this moment, I'm just gonna be an animal, and I'm just going to lean into it." Do you think Marcus was saying that to kind of excuse his behavior to just kind of be a little lazy? Or what am I interpreting incorrectly?
11:52 Ryan Holiday? Well, let's read the Hayes translation. We'll read one more. So he says, "So make your choice straightforwardly once and for all, and stick to it. Choose what's best." And he says, "Best is what benefits me." He sometimes does this thing where he kind of has a dialogue with himself. And he says, "As a rational being, then follow through, or just as an animal, then say so and stand your ground without making a show of it. Just make sure you've done your homework first." So then let's look at 3:6 here in...
12:23 Ryan Holiday? This is the new Robin Waterfield translation.
12:28 Ryan Holiday? Okay, "So as I say, you must simply and freely choose the better course and stay with it. But what is better is what does me good. If it does you good as a rational being, don't dispense with it. But if it does you good as an animal, spurn it and keep to your original decision without preening yourself on it. Just make sure that you conduct your inquiry without coming to harm." And so he's saying, then the annotation, he says, Marcus here condemns the seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain, which are due to our animal nature and therefore cannot fulfill us as human beings. So I don't think he's saying like, oh, you know, I'm gonna,
13:08 Ryan Holiday? this satisfies my, my animal urges, therefore it's good, and I'm gonna be shameless about that. I think what he's saying is, you think about what you're trying to do, what you're struggling with, what the decision is, what, you know, he says, try to do it for the rational reasons. Try to, but ask yourself, am I doing it for the rational reasons, or am I doing it for some sort of animalistic or emotional reason? And, and so I think he's trying to, trying to walk himself through what his reasons are for making a decision. But I would say generally, the Stoics are probably not going to be in favor of those animalistic reasons. But, but I'm glad you brought this up because, and I don't know what translation you read,
13:51 Ryan Holiday? or if they were the same, but it, it should be illustrative how radically different those two readings were. So there's a lot of space. You know, there's kind of a reading of the tea leaves. And, and I think depending on the author, depending on where you are in your life, you can take something totally different from it. And this, this goes to Joshua's point about, you know, sort of, you know, and your point about sort of taking your time, really reading it, and then reading it again, and again, and again, because you get something different out of it every time.
14:24 Speaker 04 Copy that, man. Thank you for that.
14:26 Ryan Holiday? Nikki?
14:28 Speaker 05 Hi.
14:29 Ryan Holiday? Hi.
14:29 Speaker 05 Good evening, everybody. Hi. I have a question about how can you integrate Stoicism with religion?
14:43 Speaker 05 Or at least dogmas, it doesn't have to be
14:47 Ryan Holiday? Sure.
14:47 Speaker 05 Like a religion. But yeah, I fight with that because I'm an addiction therapist. And I get a lot of people who are in AA. So I think that's very difficult to...
15:02 Ryan Holiday? Well, you know, it's funny, the four virtues of Stoicism are also the cardinal virtues of Christianity. They're the same. So there might be a different reason or a different sort of metaphysical argument, but the virtue is the same, right? Courage, justice, temperance, wisdom. So I think we're trying to get to the same place. I would actually argue that, you know, this sort of spiritual Stoicism is probably closer to what the ancient Stoics believed. Let's say a supernatural or a higher power is easier to jive with Stoicism than atheism and Stoicism. Because the gods or God, the logos, which also appears in the Bible, the way,
15:47 Ryan Holiday? are through lines through the Stoic teachings. So I don't know how difficult it actually is to reconcile them. The idea of a higher power, of something else being in control, you know, God or man proposes, God disposes. To me, that's not a decent, or that's a pretty decent encapsulation of Stoicism right there.
16:20 Ryan Holiday? Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.
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