Practice These Virtues

Virtue is one of those words that contains multitudes. If you think about it, being virtuous is not doing one thing all the time, or even lots of things all at once. It’s doing all the right things—the important things—in those moments when they matter most. Which is every moment. Day by day, It’s about taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standard. Needless to say, that’s really hard. Marcus Aurelius tried to do it all, all the time, but he also knew he was a flawed person. He knew he got overwhelmed (he joked to himself that no one could ever accuse him of being quick-witted). He knew that it was easy to fall short. So he had a little piece of advice for himself about how to stay on the right path. That advice was: Practice the virtues you can show. The public stuff. The stuff that was visible and obvious, that could be illustrated by actions instead of explanation. Virtues like:-honesty-gravity-endurance-austerity-resignation-abstinence-patience-sincerity-moderation-seriousness-high-mindednessThis is a good rule for us today. Yes, we want to be virtuous. We want to do it all. But why don’t we just start with doing the right things right now—with what we can show? See 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. Practice these virtues. Virtue is one of those words that contains multitudes. If you think about it, being virtuous is not doing one thing all the time, or even lots of things all at once. It's doing all the right things, the important things, in those right moments when they

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  matter most, which is really every moment. Day by day, it's taking the right actions and holding yourself to the highest standards. Needless to say, that's really hard. Marcus Aurelius tried to do it all, all the time, but he also knew that he was a flawed person. He knew that he got overwhelmed. He joked once to himself that no one could ever accuse him of being quick-witted. He knew that it was easy to fall short, so he had a little piece of advice for himself about how to stay on the right path. The advice was, "Practice the virtues you can show." The public stuff, the stuff that was visible and obvious that could be illustrated by actions instead of explanation. Virtues like honesty, gravity,

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

  endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, and high-mindedness. This is a good rule for us today. Yes, we want to be virtuous. We want to do it all. But why don't we start with doing the right things right now with what we can show? Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email.