It’s Not About The One-Liners

A Stoic sense of humor, a tough exterior–these are only the beginning of the process, of processing. Stoicism is a hard slog. It’s a practice. It’s an ongoing thing. It’s something you do. And learning how to practice more, how to actually apply Stoicism to your life everyday, is why we created Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life. The best practices and routines of Stoicism, all delivered in 14 days. Registration is only open until TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7TH. Take the next step in your Stoic education today. Click here to sign up.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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 bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  It's not about the one-liners. There's a story the Stoics like to repeat about a general who lost his entire family to the enemy. It was devastating news, discovered all at once, like that scene in Gladiator where Maximus rushes back to his farm, only to find everything he loved had been destroyed and desecrated. All expected the general to fall to pieces. Instead, he gathered himself and, as Epictetus tells us, said, "I knew they were mortal when I had them." And then he carried on living as best he could. It's an epic and tragic and in its own way inspiring line. But we should understand that Stoicism is far more than quips. It has to be, because no one could possibly withstand an event like that with simply an astute philosophical observation.

• 1:09Ryan Holiday?

  Stoicism is a rich set of ideas, and then it is real work. Liking a social media post, not being overwhelmed by the moment, is one thing, but the real work is what comes after. It's returning to Stoicism again and again. It's washing ourselves in its messages, its characters, its beauty, day after day, letting it wash over us again and again. Seneca, who wrote three beautiful essays on loss and heartache called Consolations, would talk about how grief was something that had to be conquered, not deceived. Emotions and experiences have to be understood and processed and integrated. You can't just stuff it down. You can't just dismiss it with a joke. You can't just pretend it's not there. You can't just carry around a memento mori coin and claim to be a steward of Stoicism.

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  You can't just expect memento mori to work as a magical incantation that protects you from the grievous wounds of fate. And we know all about this impulse here at Daily Stoic, because that's the stuff that we post or the emails that we write about, and that's what draws people in. But if they stop there, that's a failure. That's actually one of the reasons we're relaunching Stoicism 101, this course we have called Ancient Philosophy for Your Actual Life. It's great that you're subscribed to this email, but what next? How do you take the next step? How are you applying the ideas? Let's go back to that story of the general, because what really matters in his story is the stuff that's left out. How did he move forward? What was he doing the next day, the next month?

• 2:35Ryan Holiday?

  Did he continue to practice and apply this self-control and poise? Marcus Aurelius didn't just write about Stoicism in his journal. He lived it. He practiced the self-discipline and mindfulness that he wrote about day after day, week after week. And the same goes for you. Just reminding yourself to read an article or watch a video well, is not enough. The one-liners might be what draw people to Stoicism, but it's about practicing it, applying it, living it. It's about returning to it day after day, making it a priority. Just reminding himself that his loved ones were going to die at some point would have hardly been sufficient to process and integrate and carry on after a tragedy like that. And so it goes for you with whatever pain and adversity you're dealing with. A Stoic sense of humor, a tough exterior,

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  these are only the beginnings of the processing. You can't stop there. It's going to be a long, hard slog. And don't settle for quips. Don't stop at the surface. Go deep, apply. Likes and reposts don't make you a Stoic, but practice can. And if you want to learn how to practice more and actually apply Stoicism to your everyday life, well, that's what Stoicism 101 is all about. Ancient philosophy for your actual life. It's the best practices and routines of Stoicism delivered in 14 days. How have these great Stoic leaders applied Stoic philosophy in their life? How can you apply it in yours? That's what we're going to answer in 101. And actually, I answer those questions in the sort of office hours, deep dive sessions we do. There'll be two live Stoicism chats with me.

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  If you're a beginner, you've been studying Stoicism for years, there's a bunch of stuff you can get out of this. You'll get 14 emails from me. You'll get the live Q and As. There's journaling prompts. There's a discussion board. And you also get the previous recorded office hours we did on previous sessions. It's going to start on the 6th of November. Registration stops on the 7th of November and it's open now. So you've got to sign up. You don't have too much time. Sign up now. Grab your spot for Stoicism 101 at dailystoic.com/101. That's dailystoic.com/101 or just click the link in today's show notes.