It’s Not Only Always Been Like This, It’s Always Been Worse | Trust But Verify

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

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  It's not only always been like this, it's always been worse. It's not new, okay? Ancient Greece had earthquakes and horrible storms and natural disasters. People suffered, people were killed, people stole the money intended to help those people. Ancient Rome had tyrants and bullies. It had pointless cruelty and systemic injustices. For centuries, people have fought over miniscule differences. Their governments have been dysfunctional. Their traditions seemed like they were falling apart. Stuff was changing, stuff was stressful, stuff sucked. It's not only always been like this, it's probably always been worse. You can look out at the news in despair about things, or you can zoom out and see progress.

• 0:58Ryan Holiday?

  You can focus on bad people and miss that the bad people today are almost certainly better than the bad people back then. Even the people you disagree with and dislike politically are not selling their enemies into slavery, sending children to work in mines, or doing science experiments on minorities. Things that were not only common in Zeno and Marcus Realis's time, but common enough not that long ago. You live in a time of abundance in medicine and knowledge and opportunity, things that the Stoics could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. So yes, see what is broken. Yes, work to make it better, but do so with gratitude and not despair. Do so with the understanding that you inherited a world improved by generations before you, and now it's your turn to leave it better than you found it.

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  Trust, but verify. Today's quote is from Epictetus's Discourses 2:1-8. He says, "First off, don't let the force of an impression carry you away. Say to it, 'Hold up a bit. Let me see who you are, where you are from. Let me put you to the test.'"

• 2:18Speaker 01

  One of the wonders of your mind is the quickness with which it can comprehend and categorize things. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Blink, "We are constantly making split-second decisions based on years of experience and knowledge, as well as using the same skill to confirm prejudices, stereotypes, and assumptions." Clearly, the former thinking is a source of strength, whereas the latter is a great weakness. We lose very little, though, by taking a beat to consider our own thoughts. Is it really so bad? What do I really know about this person? Why do I have such strong feelings here? Is anxiety really adding much to the situation? What's so special about?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  By asking these questions, by putting our impressions to the test, as Epictetus recommends, we're less likely to be carried away by them or make a move based on a mistaken or biased one. We're still free to use our instincts, but we should always, as the Russian proverb says, "Trust, but verify." You know, it is funny, right? I think the impression of the Stoics is that they have no emotions, that they're unfeeling, unflinching. I don't really think that is it at all. I think they're not as immediately reactive or emotional because they do this. They stop and they think

• 3:45Speaker 01

  about it. They stop and they question. They put it to the test. One of the things my therapist has said, you know, you start to say something, and she cuts me off. She goes, "No, preface it with, what I make up about that is," right? Because like, it's so easy to take what we're about to say or what we think has verifiable, indisputable fact, when it's really opinion, when it's really an assumption, when it's really a stereotype, when it's really an extrapolation, an inference. It's not real. And once you put it to the test, you go, "Oh, yeah,

• 4:24Speaker 01

  this isn't really based on anything. I've made this up. I'm guessing. I'm basing it on past experience." And when I stop and go, "Hey, is this really so bad? Is it really what I think it is? What do I know about this?" Hey, buddy.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Sorry, my son just came out of his room. Can you go in your room? I'll send mom in.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  This is making for a super entertaining, super entertaining episode. I think I'm gonna leave this all in for you. So you just get, you guys get a taste of, of what my life is. You know, even, even stuff like that, right? I try to, you know, maybe sometimes your first instinct is, oh, this is an inconvenience. Oh, this is annoying. Oh, this is not how it's supposed to be. And then you stop and you go, but is that true? Actually, is it an opportunity? To me, that's what, what Marcus really is reminding himself with that idea of the obstacle is the way. Right? You go, okay, yes, I can see it this way as a problem. It's not how I want things to be as an inconvenience or whatever. And then actually, you can stop and think, no, it's this chance to do something. It's a chance for things to go differently.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  It's a chance to do it again, like as a, seriously, I'm gonna wrap this up here in just a minute. And then I'm gonna go in and get a second chance to lay with my son as he goes to bed. And that's not annoying. That's not a problem. And this is important. These are arbitrarily made up things to begin with, right? But that's not how I always think about them. That's not how I necessarily think about them naturally. But it's taking this second to put it to the test, to think about it, to question it. And that's true for the email that you just got that had a rude tone. Did it have a rude tone or did it have no tone at all? And that's what you thought was rude. Did it have a rude tone because that's the voice in your head? Not what was coming across, what did this person mean?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  What's a nice way to interpret, right? You can put all these impressions, assumptions to the test, and you should. And the more that you do that, the better and happier you will be, the more stoic you will be. Now, sometimes that initial instinct is correct. That's what that expression trust but verify means. You verify. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're not. But you gotta do that work. And you understand that, you know, your mind is not always your friend. And your impressions are not always right. When you go, I trust my gut, do you deserve to trust that gut, right? Have you done the work? That warrants that.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Or would just a little more investigation, a little pause, a little more thinking, would that actually make everything better? I think that it would. So with that, I'll close up today's episode. I'm not going to record anymore. I'm going to go get a second crack at bedtime. And I hope that you are probably listening to this in the morning. So I'll wish you a good day and talk to y'all soon.

• 7:31Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.