This We Must Avoid

“When he was young, Seneca experimented with vegetarianism. It was a fad at the time—considered a transgressive but trendy idea from the philosopher Pythagoras. Then, soon enough, he abandoned it, forgetting quite quickly the thing he’d been so passionate about that he was willing to risk his life for (that’s how transgressive Rome perceived Pythagoras’ teachings).”Ryan discusses why timeless wisdom will always conquer fleeting trends, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Just 24 hours left to join us in our New Year, New You Challenge. You’ve always wanted to change. Make 2021 the year where you finally bring yourself closer to living your best life. Don’t wait to better yourself. Don’t wait to demand more of yourself. Start Now. Sign up for the challenge at https://dailystoic.com/challenge.***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, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living a 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.

• 0:28Ryan Holiday?

  This we must avoid. When he was young, Seneca experimented with vegetarianism. It was a fad at that time, considered a transgressive but trendy idea from the philosopher Pythagoras. Then soon enough, he abandoned it, forgetting quite quickly the thing he'd been so passionate about that he was willing to risk his life for it. That's how transgressive Rome viewed Pythagoras's teachings. The point here isn't to comment on vegetarianism, but on fads. We can imagine in a different generation, maybe Seneca would have been wearing those silly glove shoes that were popular for a while, loudly telling everyone how superior they were to regular shoes, before quietly returning to regular shoes without comment. Maybe he'd have been on the standing best trend before reverting back to a chair like

• 1:12Ryan Holiday?

  most everyone else seems to have done. Or less humorously, how easily might he, like many young people, have gotten caught up in extremist politics on the right and left, falling prey to that corrupting force of radicalization that is destroying so many of us today? It can be easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing, or what a small group of people we want to impress are doing. The opinions of the mob can be like rip currents that grab us and take us far away from where we thought we'd ever go. And then when tossed aside, they have remarkably little power, and we embarrassingly swim back to shore, if we are still alive to do so. We have to be careful. We have to think for ourselves. That is what was so impressive about Cato, because he practiced

• 1:57Ryan Holiday?

  not caring about what other people thought, because he stuck with his most morium. When the riptide of Caesarism tore through Rome, he was not affected. This is what was impressive about Musonius Rufus. He was able to think independently and see that, of course, women should be allowed to learn philosophy, even if every other school was sexist and discriminatory. You must avoid the mob. You must reject trends and fads. You must stick with what is timeless and true.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Just a few days left to sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It's our best thing. You get 21 custom challenges, almost 30,000 words, almost a full book's worth of content. You get a printable calendar. There's gonna be a weekly check-in call from me. You get access to our Slack channel. Look, Mark Serili says, "You could be good today, instead you choose tomorrow." Epictetus says, "How much longer are you gonna wait to demand the best of yourself?" Will you do this with us? We'd love to have you. I'll be doing it there alongside everyone. It's one of my favorite things. I have all sorts of habits that I got from last year's and the year before, and the other challenges we've done. And remember, if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, you get this challenge and the other ones for free. So I'll see ya. Sign up at DailyStoic.com/challenge.