This Reminder Hurts, But We Need It

“At the height of his powers, King Pyrrhus was killed by a roof tile, thrown by an old woman, as he conquered another city. In 1967, Harold Holt, the prime minister of Australia, went out for a swim in the ocean and simply never came back.”Ryan reminds you of the inevitable fact of your mortality, 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/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic 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.

• 0:04Ryan 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.

• 0:27Ryan Holiday?

  This reminder hurts, but we need it. At the height of his powers, King Fireh was killed by a roof tile, thrown by an old woman as he conquered another city. In 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, went out for a swim in the ocean and simply never came back. We like to think that power, that fame, that greatness, that money can protect us from the whims of fate, but of course it can't. We lost Kobe Bryant to a helicopter crash. Stevie Ray Vaughan, too. John Lennon was killed by a deranged twerp. John F. Kennedy, by one, too. All the accomplishments, all the wonderful contributions to humanity, all the years they had left to live and gifts left to give,

• 1:10Ryan Holiday?

  suddenly gone, cut off before their time. All the ambition, all the mountains they had their sights on climbing, gone. It was Juvenal who said that the whole world had not seemed big enough to contain Alexander the Great. Then suddenly, in an instant, a coffin was sufficient. No matter how big we are, we can get cut down to size. We will get cut down to size. It's not a matter of if, only when. That's why we say to ourselves several times a day, memento mori. That's why we study history. That's why we read these texts, to remind ourselves of that inescapable fact that our ego wants to constantly ignore, that we are fragile humans. Whether we are an emperor like Marcus Aurelius or a slave like Epictetus,

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  we are at the mercy of forces we cannot predict, let alone control. We are mortal. We don't have forever. We are not invincible.

• 2:05Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference, and of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out the crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us, and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.