Keep Doing This—You’ll Always Need It

“You’ve been reading for years now. You’ve been studying your Stoicism. You’ve been keeping up with your morning journals, doing your evening review. So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. “Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?” Maimonides once asked. “Until the day of one’s death.””Ryan explains why the pursuit of wisdom is never ending, 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 Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: 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.

• 0:04Ryan 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 at DailyStoic.com.

• 0:26Ryan Holiday?

  How long do you have to keep doing this? You've been reading for years now. You've been studying your Stoicism. You've been keeping up your morning journals, doing your evening review. So when does this all culminate and coalesce into wisdom? When are you good? Never. The answer is never. "Until when is a person obligated to study Torah?" goes the Jewish expression. "Until the day of one's death." So too with Stoicism. So too with the pursuit of knowledge. This is not a journey with a fixed endpoint. It goes on so long as you do. With each breath, our obligation to continue our study and practice of courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom remains.

• 1:11Ryan Holiday?

  It must, because there is always room to get better and improve, always someone and something to learn from. There is a passage in Meditations, likely written by Marcus Aurelius in his 50s, more than a quarter century into his study of philosophy, where he criticizes himself for the anxiety and fear he feels about death. "You're still struggling with this," he says, "after all these years." Keep working at it. Keep going. For Seneca, it was the same. He wanted to find one thing in his studies each day, one thing to make him better, or kinder, or calmer. And so must you. It's wonderful that you have been at this for as long as you have, but you have to keep going.

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  Stay at it until the day of your death. You'll need it.

• 2:01Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to another episode of The Daily Stoic. It's mind blowing to me now that we are well over 30 million downloads of this show. It means so much to me to have all of you listen. If you want to help spread the word about the show, please leave a review on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcasting platform is. It helps a lot. And then, of course, click Subscribe. That's how we know how many people are listening and that makes sure you get the episodes as they come in. So thanks again for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast.