Now Is The Time To Be Kind | A Cure For The Self

“The thing about stress and stuggle is that it hardens us. It makes us turn inward. With more than expected on our plate we have less time, less patience, less sympathy for others.”Ryan explains that the highest goal is not to be perfect but just to improve, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge is a masterclass in leadership with the cadence and rigor of a boot camp. It is also a live course, which means all participants will join the course together and move through together at the same pace to their own version of the same goal—to be a great leader. Registration is now officially open over at dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge. Registration will close on Saturday, July 31st at midnight CST. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, then some analysis from me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Now is the time to be kind. The thing about stress and struggle is that it hardens us. It makes us turn inward. With more than expected on our plate, we have less time, less patience, less sympathy for others. We're dealing with our own problems, trying to keep those closest to us safe, just trying to get through it ourselves. While this makes sense from a self-preservation standpoint, it's also a bit self-defeating, because the more we focus on our own problems, the larger they become. The more we think about ourselves, the more pain and anger and despair we can feel. So one of the things you can do today is think about how you can be of use, how you can be of service.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Imagine James Stockdale in that prison camp in Vietnam, that real-world laboratory of Epictetus, as he called it. And what was he trying to do there to distract himself from the pain and the worry? He was thinking about his men. He was trying to help. He united them in common cause together. "You-ess," he liked to say, "unity over self." That's what a Stoic does. That's what you need to do. Mow your neighbor's lawn. Call your elderly grandfather. Donate some money. Cheer your kids up. Pick up some trash you see in the park. Respond kindly to that person being negative or partisan on social media.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  "Wherever there is a person," Seneca said, "there is an opportunity for kindness." Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, there is an opportunity to do good, to help others. And it just so happens that that is also a wonderful way to help yourself, especially right now.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  A Cure for the Self. A person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible, and greater as you draw near. This is Seneca's Moral Letters, 111, from today's entry in The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday, translated by the wonderful Steve Hanselman. You can get this anywhere books are sold. There's an audio version, ebook version, physical version. There's even a special premium leather-bound edition at the Daily Stoic store. You can check out at store.dailystoic.com. What is a cure for the self? Perhaps Seneca means that through nature and nurture, we develop a unique set of characteristics,

• 3:14Ryan Holiday?

  some positive, some negative. When those negative characteristics begin to have consequences in our lives, some of us turn to therapy, psychoanalysis, with the help of a support group. The point? To cure certain selfish, destructive parts of ourselves. But of all the avenues for curing our negative characteristics, philosophy has existed the longest and helped the most people. It is concerned not just with mitigating the effects of mental illness or neuroses, but it is designed to encourage human flourishing. It's designed to help you live the good life. Don't you deserve to flourish? Wouldn't you like to be great of soul, filled with confidence and invincible to external events?

• 3:58Ryan Holiday?

  Wouldn't you like to be the proverbial onion packed with layers of greatness? Well, then, practice philosophy. That's something Seneca says. He says, "What does philosophy offer?" He says, "Philosophy offers counsel." Marcus Aurelius repeatedly compares philosophy to medicine. It's like an ointment. It reduces pain and suffering. That's what this philosophy is there for. As we've said a bunch of times, go to therapy, seek medical help, go to recovery groups.

• 4:30Ryan Holiday?

  Be religious too. Stoicism is not mutually exclusive with anything.

• 4:35Ryan Holiday?

  But all these things are designed to do what Seneca is talking about, which is the cure for the self. The more you work on yourself, the more you address the problems, the issues, the childhood wounds that you have, the better you'll be at whatever it is that you're doing. Last year, I've, you know, I've worked on so many issues, issues with my parents, issues with my childhood, issues with, you know, compulsions, or, you know, I've really found that anxiety was more of a pronounced force in my life than I, than I wanted it to be. And so I dealt with it, and I'm still dealing with it, trying to cure myself. I'm trying to get better every single day, as you're trying to do. That's what we are doing here, trying to get better.

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  Don't, if you think you're, that's the problem with ego or delusion. If you think you're perfect, there's nothing you're going to work on. There's no way you're going to get better. If you think you're a piece, if you think you're an irredeemable piece of crap, probably not going to get any better either. But the point is, you're good, but you can be better. And if you dealt with this, if you faced that, if you explored this, if you opened up about that, what could you be capable of? How much greater could you be? Who could you be there for? What could you be capable of doing? So, the cure for the self, it's not that you're broken, it's not that you're diseased, but we all have issues. And in having the courage and the discipline and the counsel of philosophy to guide us, we can make real progress at that.

• 6:02Ryan Holiday?

  And that's what, when I look at who I was when I first picked up Marcus Aurelius at 19, I've cured a lot of things. I wouldn't say they're all in remission. I wouldn't say they're all perfectly gone, but I'm in remission on a lot of them. And, and now I'm turning to additional things too. So, that's what we're doing here. I hope you're making that progress. Hope you're not afraid to ask for help. Hope you're not afraid to look in the mirror. So it gets better when you do. Talk soon.

• 6:33Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. There's just a couple more days to sign up for the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge. It closes here on Saturday, July 31 at midnight Central Time. It's not only our biggest, but it is our best course that we've done. It's the first time we're running it. It's got all sorts of moving pieces that our previous courses haven't had, including these weekly deep dives with a two-star general in the Air Force, a GM of a sports dynasty, real leaders in real positions whose experiences I can't wait to share with you. I'm excited to talk to them. I'm excited for you to talk to them. This is going to be a great course. The Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Leaders is open now. It closes Saturday, July 31 at midnight Central

• 7:16Ryan Holiday?

  Time, so do not miss it. The course begins on Sunday, August 1. Really excited. Can't wait to have you. You can sign up at dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge. And remember, Daily Stoic Life members get this course and all the courses for free. So if you were thinking about signing up for Daily Stoic Life, this is your chance to basically get all the value. Sign up, dailystoic.com/leadershipchallenge, or of course, dailystoiclife.com.