It’s Never A Straight Line

"You had plans for how this year was going to go. You had plans for your business, for your relationships, plans for your house or your finances. Maybe you had a cause you had been working on for years. Maybe you thought your moment was approaching. Things were going in the right direction. It was about to happen. And now? Boom. It seems like all progress has stopped. Maybe it feels like things are suddenly going in the opposite direction."Ryan discusses how to deal with the sense that your plans have all gone awry on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee 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. It's never a straight line. You had plans for how this year was going to go. You had plans for your business, for your relationships, plans for your house or your finances. Maybe you had a cause you had been working on for years. Maybe you thought your moment was approaching.

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  Things were going in the right direction. It was about to happen. And now, boom, it seems like all progress has stopped. Maybe it feels like things are suddenly going in the opposite direction. After the 2016 election, the outgoing president drew his staff into his office. They were understandably upset, even devastated, as all administrations who have lost a referendum are. "I know you're disappointed," he said, "but you have to understand, progress is not linear. It zigs and zags. It reverses. It faces setbacks. Sure, we hope it bends towards truth, but we cannot expect it to march in a straight

• 1:26Ryan Holiday?

  line. This is true for all parties, all people, and has been for all time. Remember, Marcus Aurelius said that history is the same thing happening over and over again. Remember, Seneca reminds us that fortune doesn't care about our plans, doesn't care about progress at all. It doesn't care that we were this close to pulling it off. That's the reality of life. If you don't expect and prepare for that, you will be crushed and heartbroken. All we can do today, whatever form the setback has taken for us, financial losses, a business closed, furloughed, mourning someone we love, is to keep going. We must keep going," as

• 2:07Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus said, "on swerving to the finish line. No matter the twists and turns of the road, we have to keep going towards truth, towards what we know to be right, towards what we want to do." Hey, just wanted to remind you, if you want to take your practice of Stoicism to the next level, if you want some physical reminders of the ideas we talk about here, check out the Daily Stoic store and go to dailystoic.com/store. These products are what help us keep the lights on here at Daily Stoic. They help grow the business, let us spread the message to more and more people. So if you want to support us, check that out. Go to dailystoic.com/store.