Stop Expecting This | Cultivate Indifference

At this point, you should have a pretty good understanding of human nature. That’s why we read history after all (and if you don’t, we suggest this reading challenge). You’ve met people—you’ve seen what they do. People lie. People take the easy way out. People chase the wrong things. Not always, not all people, but most people, most of the time. Yet here you are, perpetually shocked and disappointed. Perpetually upset and resentful. Cato, it was said by Cicero, seemed to forget that he didn’t live in Plato’s Republic but in the “dregs of Rome” (more on this in Lives of the Stoics). Cato seemed to be pretty regularly surprised that everyone wasn’t as committed to virtue, wasn’t as disciplined about that commitment as he was. There was even a saying that folks he was disappointed often said to excuse themselves: “We can’t all be Catos.”One of the great lines from the Stoics was “not to expect figs in winter.” Cato could have done a better job of that. We could all do a better job at this. Most people have not even heard of Stoicism, let alone committed to it. Most people just do what they want in the moment, what’s easiest in the moment. Most people are not trying to live up to any kind of standard. So why are we expecting them to be anything other than what they are? Why are we surprised or disappointed? We don’t have to relax our standards but we can certainly lower our expectations.✉️ 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.

• 0:02Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

• 0:39Ryan Holiday?

  Stop expecting this. At this point, you should have a pretty good understanding of human nature. That's why we read history, after all. And if you don't, I may suggest the Daily Stoic Reading Challenge. You've met people, you've seen what they do. People lie. People take the easy way out. People chase the wrong things. Not always, not all people, but most people, most of the time. Yet here you are, perpetually shocked and disappointed, perpetually upset and resentful. "Cato," it was said by Cicero, seemed to forget that he didn't live in Plato's Republic, but in the dregs of Rome. He seemed to be pretty regularly surprised that everyone wasn't as committed to virtue, wasn't as disciplined about that commitment as he was. There was even a saying that folks he was

• 1:22Ryan Holiday?

  disappointed in came to say to him, "We can't all be Catos." One of the great lines from the Stoics was not to expect figs in winter. "Cato could have done a better job of that. We could all do a better job of this." Most people have not even heard of Stoicism, let alone have been committed to it. Most people just do what they want in the moment. What's easiest in the moment? Most people are not trying to live up to any kind of standard. So why are we expecting them to be anything other than what they are? Why are we so surprised and disappointed? We don't have to relax our standards for ourselves, but we can certainly lower our expectations.

• 2:18Ryan Holiday?

  Cultivate Indifference. This comes to us from this week's meditation in the Daily Stoic Journal. "Some people spend their lives chasing good things: health, wealth, pleasure, achievement. Others try to avoid the bad things with equal energy: sickness, poverty, pain. And these look like two drastically different approaches, but in the end, they are the same. The Stoics continually reminded themselves that so many of the things we desire and avoid are beyond our control. Instead of chasing impossibilities, the Stoics trained to be equally prepared and equally suited to thrive in any condition. They trained to be indifferent. And this is a great power, and a cultivation of this skill is a very powerful exercise.

• 3:02Ryan Holiday?

  Of all the things that are, some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. The good are virtues in all that share in them; the bad are vices in all that indulge them. The indifferent lie in between virtue and vice and include wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain." Epictetus's Discourses. "My reasoned choice is as indifferent to the reasoned choice of my neighbor and as to his breath and body. However much we've been made for cooperation, the ruling reason in each of us is a master of its own affair. If this weren't the case, the evil in someone else would become my harm, and God didn't mean for someone else to control my misfortune." Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 8:56.

• 3:44Ryan Holiday?

  "There are things in life which are advantageous and disadvantageous; both are beyond our control." That's Seneca Moral Letters 92. This idea of good, bad, and then a sort of a third category is this interesting debate. I talk a little bit about this in Lives of the Stoics. The early Stoics were much more cynical, and I mean, like, much closer to the cynics in the philosophical school, the idea that, like, there's good and bad, there's virtue and vice, and everything is one of those categories. And there's a lot of argument about this. I think it's the later Stoics, the more practical, pragmatic Stoics that go... I mean, sure, but there's also stuff in between.

• 4:26Ryan Holiday?

  There is such a thing as gray area and it's impractical and unrealistic to assume that there's not. You know, Seneca talks about sort of preferred indifference, like, is it better to be short or tall? I mean, it's not good or bad either way. If you're short or tall, that's is what it is. But if you had a choice, you'd probably pick tall, right? You'd probably pick rich over poor. It doesn't mean that it's virtuous to be rich, but if you had a choice, you'd choose it. So that's just like a sort of an interesting side Stoic debate. But this main thing is like, look, the Stoic is good either way. It's not that the Stoics love misfortune and the Stoics don't want success or ease or happiness or any of these things. It's no, the Stoics are ready for whatever life throws at them. This sets them up to not be disappointed when life does throw adversity.

• 5:11Ryan Holiday?

  And it also puts them in a position where they're not yearning for or craving something good or ease or luck or success. They're just cool with however it is. That's what zen means, right? You're just philosophical about it. You're just chill about it. You've got an even keel. And so, so this idea of indifference is not like nihilism. It's actually this kind of resiliency, this ability to be good with whatever happens, with whatever life throws at you. Would I rather we not have been through this pandemic? Yeah, probably. But I managed to find my space inside of it. I focused on what I could do inside of it. Would I have loved for parts of my childhood to be different?

• 5:55Ryan Holiday?

  Would I have loved to be a little bit taller? Would I have loved to be this or that? Yeah, sure, if I had a choice, but I didn't have a choice. So I adjust and I make do. You know, Seneca talks, and I think he's quoting from Chrysippus, or maybe it's Cleanthes, but he's saying like, look, a wise man wants stuff, but it doesn't need it, right? We make do with what it is, play the hand we're dealt. But if you're asking us what cards we want, if you're, you know, as the cards are flipping over, is there one we would prefer? Probably. So indifference is this complicated, tricky thing in Stoicism. But I think at the end of the day, it's pretty commonsensical, right? You'd rather be tall, but you're cool being short. You'd rather have use of all your limbs.

• 6:38Ryan Holiday?

  But if something happened, you'd keep going, right? You know, Seneca says, "You'd rather see, but if you lost your eye in battle, that wouldn't be the end of it for you." You'd adjust, you'd make do. That's the power of Stoicism. We'll respond, we'll endure, we'll survive, we'll make the best of everything. And in that, we're indifferent. But we're actually quite strong and confident because of that indifference. So think about that this week. If you want to journal about it in your daily Stoic journal, great. But try to cultivate the strength of endurance.