Very Little Is Needed | Ask Daily Stoic

We think we need a lot to be happy. We think we need piles of money. And power. And fame. And to get that perfect house and to marry that perfect person. There are so many things we tell ourselves we have to have. They are nice to have. But it’s not what we need.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan discusses the strategies he uses to identify when declining an offer is the best course of action. He also touches on the best ways to teach your kids about Stoicism, and how you can begin a fruitful journaling habit. For an easy way to start the day with the best Stoic quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and others, check out our Daily Stoic Page-a-Day Calendar.✉️ 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, including the Premium Leather Edition of the Daily Stoic.📱 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.

• 0:03Ryan 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  Very little is needed for the happy life.

• 0:34Ryan Holiday?

  We think we need piles of money and power and fame and to get that perfect house and marry that perfect person. And there are so many things we tell ourselves we have to have. But for centuries, the wisest minds have been saying, some version of what Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, "very little is needed to make a happy life." And a little less than 2,000 years later, Goethe wrote, "One ought to, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." Seneca similarly suggested that each day we should find a good quote or read a good story or have a good exchange with a friend.

• 1:18Ryan Holiday?

  "That's it," he says, "that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed, against other misfortunes as well." Just a few things, a good quote to start the morning, a little song to start the workday, a good poem with lunch, a fine picture next, and a few reasonable words spoken over dinner with a friend or a loved one or in the pages of a journal. Do that each day, and you will have a happy and a wise life. And actually, I'm just busting out. I just got home. I was gone. I'm just busting out the new Daily Stoic calendar for 2023. One quote every day. It's the quote in the Daily Stoic book, but if you want it on your nightstand, if you want it on your bathroom counter, or I keep one on my desk.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  There's also one on the counter at the painted porch. You should check out the Daily Stoic Tear Away Calendar, 365 Days of Stoic Quotes, featuring quotes from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, and more. You can check it out at store.dailystoic.com or I'll link to it in today's episode notes. But check it out. Talk soon.

• 2:32Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. You send in questions, we answer them. Inspired by Stoicism, I'm dropping my papers like crazy. So today's question is, how can I get better at saying no? This is something I am really bad at, and I get the feeling that the Stokes were not great at it naturally anyway. I mean, Seneca couldn't have been too good at saying no because he agreed to work for Nero and he refused to leave for far too long. But in meditations, Marcus Aurelius, he says, like, ask yourself in every moment, is this essential? Like, do I need to do it? Is it a real obligation? Is it actually important? And the truth is, a lot of the things that we get pressured into doing are not necessary, right? There are things that we're doing because everyone

• 3:17Ryan Holiday?

  else is doing them. We're doing them because they showed up in our inbox. We're doing them because somebody offered us some amount of money for them. We're not really asking, is this essential? Is this what I was put on the planet to do? If this was by the last day of my life, would I do it? And so if we can ask ourselves this question, I think generally we'll be better. I have a sign above my desk that a guy named Jonathan Fader, he's a brilliant sports psychologist, he sent it to me. It's a picture of Oliver Sacks in his office, Oliver Sacks in the picture is on the phone, and then above him is a sign and it just says, "N-O!" Exclamation point. And it's just a reminder to me, like, have to say no. Early on in your career, you have to say yes to everything because you're trying to get established. But as you get older, you realize like, oh man, I

• 4:02Ryan Holiday?

  don't have an unlimited amount of time. I don't have unlimited resources. I have to say no to things. And I will say that one of the things that having kids has helped me with is realizing, I think before I was okay harming myself and harming even my wife or my health by saying yes to things I didn't need to be doing. It was too much for me to do. But now that I have kids, I realize like, oh, I am... Taking this time from them, I promised them all my time. Now, obviously, I have to claw some of that back for work, right? But beyond that, beyond the things that required to survive, to, you know, to, to feel fulfilled as a human being myself, all, everything left over belongs to my two sons. And so the idea that I'm just gonna fritter that away because somebody wants me on their

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  podcast, or someone sent me some random email, or someone wants to pay me $10 to go do something is ridiculous, right? You are, you are saying yes, you're saying no to something else. So one of the things I always think about is what am I saying no to? And is that actually a more important thing? So one of the questions we get the most often, this is comments like, how do I teach my kids about Stoicism? Well, you know, the, the Stoics, uh, like, do you look at Cato's life and Seneca's life and Marcus Rilis's life? One of the things they had, it wasn't their parents teaching them about Stoicism, although Cato clearly taught his daughter Portia about it, is that they had really great tutors. So that's one of the things I'm thinking about with my kids, is obviously, school is important.

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  Obviously, it's legally an obligation, but like, who are teachers or tutors I can bring into their life on a one-off basis, or for a month, or for a year? Who are really great instructors I could bring in and have them, have, have teach them? And so, obviously, there's not really like a whole contingent of Stoic tutors, but maybe there are people who are experts in specific things that are pertaining to Stoicism. So if those four virtues, maybe a way to think about this is like, the four virtues of Stoicism are wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage. Who is a teacher you can bring into your kid's life that can teach them about those four things? Or if you can't afford that, what are four books that, or, or four movies, or four stories,

• 6:17Ryan Holiday?

  or four historical places you can go to teach them about those four concepts? And how can you do that on a regular and recurring basis? So I think that teachers is really important. Cato had a Stoic teacher, Seneca was a Stoic teacher, Epictetus was taught by Musonius, Marcus Rilis was taught by this guy named Julius Rusticus. So who is your Stoic teacher for you and for your kids? That's a really important question. The other thing is, Don't think about Stoicism as this thing you know and you are teaching to your kids. I think a better way to think about it would be thinking about it as something you're learning together. So Seneca talks about how, he says, like, when you're reading my letters, assume that we are laying in the same hospital ward together. We're both sick, we're both trying to get better.

• 7:02Ryan Holiday?

  So don't think about Stoicism as something you've mastered and you're passing along to your kids. Think about it as something you're learning with your kids, that you guys are like, learning this together, you're like, studying together, you're reading, you're listening to this podcast together, you're sharing the Instagram clips together, you know, you're emailing passages back and forth, you know, you're going on a trip to Rome together. Like, you are doing this together because you're both sick and you're both trying to get better. To me, that's the great way. And then the ultimate way to teach your kids about Stoicism, and this seems obvious, but it needs to be said, is by example. Don't tell your kids about justice and temperance and wisdom and courage. Prove those things, embody those things. That's what Epic Pedancy says. Don't talk about your philosophy, embody it.

• 7:46Ryan Holiday?

  Don't talk about it, be about it. The last question for today is, how do I start a journaling habit? So I'm a little biased that we make the Daily Stoic Journal, can't recommend it highly enough. Hopefully, you know, talk about, don't, don't talk about it, be about it. I do the Daily Stoic Journal every morning. There's a question in the morning and, and you, you reflect on it as you begin the day and the idea is that you end the day by reflecting on how you did, you know, per the intention that you set. But I think the easiest way to start a journaling habit, and I've recommended this a bunch of times, I use a journal called the One Line a Day Journal. I'm on my third year of it, but you, you go through and you, you just write one sentence every day.

• 8:28Ryan Holiday?

  So there's a mothering version, then a father version, then a parenting version, then a college, there's all these different versions. I just have a one and I write one sentence every day. It is really easy to write one sentence per day. So instead of thinking about this, how do I, how do I start journaling? How do I have a journaling habit? It's more like, what is the least amount of journaling that I can do and start, right? And so I think that's a, that's a, an easy, nice one. It could just be writing down a quote from one of the Stoics each morning and then kicking it around. You know, it could just be, you know, keeping a workout log, like, start with something really small or easy, and I think that's a way to start, start the journaling. There's some other great journals. The Bullet Journal is great. The Five Minute Journal,

• 9:10Ryan Holiday?

  also really easy. Like, starting a journaling habit is hard. Journaling for five minutes is easy. So when you think about these habits that are intimidating or difficult, or that you've tried and failed that before, I think what the Stoics would recommend is start with something really easy and build on it. Epictetus talks about fueling the habit bonfire. Like, how can you just get a spark going and then add to it from there? So it doesn't have to be this intense journaling conversation with yourself for pages and pages and pages. It takes years to work. It's like, if you wanted to start meditating, meditate for 30 seconds. Don't try to meditate on a 30-day silent meditation retreat. That's gonna be really intimidating and hard. So start small and then build. You know, my journaling habit

• 9:53Ryan Holiday?

  is probably seven or eight years old now. And as a result, I've worked myself up to a place where it's natural and effortless. And when I don't do it, it's almost painful. But it took me a while to get there. And this one-line-a-day journal was a big breakthrough for me. So thanks for listening. Keep your questions coming. You can send them to info at dailystoic.com, and we will keep doing this on the podcast.