It Calls For Thee

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit DailyStoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  "It calls for thee." We know they can do better. We know they were elected to do better. We know they swore an oath to do better. We've been talking about our elected leaders and their many failures, that they refused to stand up, that they refused to risk their jobs, that they refused to do the hard work of reaching across the aisle or tackling intractable, thankless problems. This is a problem, no question. But as always, Stoicism is not about them, it's about us. When we say that courage is calling, do we mean other people? Or do we mean that the bell is tolling for us? The question, as always, is are we being brave enough? Are we doing our job?

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  It's easy to condemn and judge others. It's harder to turn that judgment around. As Seneca, a hypocritical politician himself, it's worth noting, would say, "We tend to notice the pimple on someone else, ignoring that we ourselves are covered in sores." Think about the principles we are standing on. Think of what we are willing to risk. Think of the intractable problems we have chosen to tackle in our neighborhood, in our workplace, in our families. Think of whether we are working with people we disagree with, or are we too afraid? Are we embodying the traits that we would like to see in our leaders? Because courage demands that we do.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  And obviously, this is the idea in Courage is Calling, a book I wrote back in 2020, but you know, turns out to be particularly relevant today. It's the first in the Four Virtues series. Obviously, that was followed by Discipline is Destiny, and then Right Thing Right Now, and then I'm following it, the Wisdom book, that will complete the series that's coming out this fall. But do check out Courage is Calling. If you want a signed copy, you can grab that in the Daily Stoics store. I'll link to that in today's show notes.