We Almost Always Regret This | A Week Without Complaining

It’s not that we didn’t have a reason. That we weren’t provoked. Or mistreated. We were. We had legitimate reasons to be upset. We had a legitimate grievance. And yet…our response was such a mistake. We come to regret the yelling. We regret the harsh words. How much better would we have been had we been able to, as the great play about Cato put it, look at things through the “calm light of mild philosophy.”To the Stoics, what we did in a fit of passion–be it of lust or envy but most of all out of anger–was almost always the wrong thing.---And in today's Daily Stoic meditation, Ryan discusses the transformation that you will undergo when you recognize what you are complaining about in your thoughts, and then challenge yourself to re-focus💪 If you really want to get serious about conquering your anger, sign up for our course: Taming Your Temper: The 11-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. It’s 11 days of challenges, exercises, video lessons, and bonus tools based on Stoic philosophy that is aimed at helping you deal with your anger in a constructive manner. Learn more here!✉️ 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.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  We almost always regret this. It's not that we didn't have a reason, that we weren't provoked or mistreated. We were. We had legitimate reasons to be upset. We had a legitimate grievance. And yet, our response was such a mistake. We come to regret the yelling. We regret the harsh words. How much better we would have been if we had been able to, as the great play about Cato put it, "Look at things through the calm light of mild philosophy." To the Stoics, what we did in a fit of passion, be it lust or envy, but most of all, out of anger, was almost always the wrong thing. It didn't matter if the other person was wrong, if we were relentlessly baited or abused. It didn't matter if we escaped consequences. It was a mistake to be overcome by our passions.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  Marcus Aurelius would have been cautioned by one of the most terrible moments of his mentor Hadrian's reign, when aggravated by the incompetence of a secretary, the emperor stabbed the man in the eye with a stylus. Seneca wrote a whole essay on the perils of anger, the most blinding and self-destructive of the passions. When we are angry, we do stupid things. We do impulsive things that we come to regret. We burn bridges. We stoop to their level. We break trusts. We delegitimize whatever legitimacy our grievance may have had. We must beware this madness. We must command ourselves. It's okay to be angry. Just look at the situation in a calm and mild light before you do anything.

• 2:13Ryan Holiday?

  And as usual, the Stoics have some of the smartest and most applicable exercises when it comes to anger. That's why we created Taming Your Temper: The 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Anger. 10 days of challenges, exercises, video lessons, and bonus tools based on Stoic philosophy. Materials to help you deal with your anger in a constructive manner. We will give you the tools that you need, not just to manage your anger, but to leave it in the past, so you can focus on what's important, living a virtuous and fulfilling life. You can learn the wisdom of the great thinkers and leaders of history through this course: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Abraham Lincoln, even Mr. Rogers and many others.

• 2:56Ryan Holiday?

  You'll be able to use our unique exercises to break free from the cage that anger has built around you, and see the world and yourself in a new light. Each day, you'll be able to watch a new video from me, Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, and of course, The Daily Stoic, as I explain the ideas behind the words and shed light on the path that you're on, but that I am also on. Because again, we are all struggling to tame our temper, and we will all be better if we can get closer to that. Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal. It will take time and effort, it won't be free, but by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper, it will ultimately be achievable and life-changing.

• 3:41Ryan Holiday?

  So take the first step on the path to a calmer and more fulfilling future. Check out Taming Your Temper: The 10-Day Stoic Guide to Controlling Your Anger. You can click the link below, or you can just go to dailystoic.com/anger.

• 4:11Ryan Holiday?

  A week without complaining. Epictetus spoke often to his students about the need to give up blaming and complaining. In fact, he saw it as one of the primary measuring sticks of progress in the art of living. How much of life is wasted? Pointed fingers. Has complaining ever solved a single problem? Marcus Aurelius would say blame yourself or no one. This week, try constructive feedback over complaining and responsibility over blame. And if something goes wrong, spend some time reflecting on what the true causes were. Don't waste a minute with complaints in your journal or out loud. But we have three quotes from Epictetus today about complaints. He says, "You must stop blaming God and not blame any person.

• 4:56Ryan Holiday?

  You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice. You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy, or regret." That's the Discourses 322. "For nothing outside my reasoned choice," he says, "can hinder or harm it. My reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear, we would be making progress." That's Discourses 319. And then he also says in Incoridion 1:3, "But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others is truly not yours, then no one will ever be able

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  to coerce or stop you, and you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, and you will have no enemy, and no one will harm you, because no harm can affect you." It's funny, just as I was sitting here, I was thinking to myself, man, it's so hot. It's hot in my office. I have to turn off the AC when I record. But one of my favorite quotes from Marcus Rilke about complaining, which I actually also have in sort of fictionalized in The Boy Who Would Be King, he says, "Don't be heard complaining at court, not even to yourself." Right? There are so many parts of Marcus Rilke's job that we get the sense that he didn't really like. He's kind of an introverted person. He's a good person.

• 6:23Ryan Holiday?

  He wants to do what's right. He's not an ambitious person in the sense he doesn't want to dominate or win or everything. And so it must have been so frustrating to be around these obnoxious, annoying, you know, dishonest people, these professional politicians, basically. But he catches himself. He's like, it's not even enough not to complain publicly. And of course, everyone would have indulged his complaints. He's emperor. But he says, "Don't even complain in your own mind." And that is some higher level shit right there, isn't it? Right? To not only be able to stop yourself from complaining. I think it was Will Bowen. He had the no complaint challenge. Every time, you know, you say a complaint,

• 7:06Ryan Holiday?

  you have to move the bracelet from one wrist to the other. And the idea is, can you leave it on one wrist for 30 days? Can you get it in one spot for 30 days? No complaints. But imagine how most of us would fail if even thinking about a complaint, not even verbalizing it disqualified us. But that's the challenge of the Stoics. And I think Epictetus, though, is more honest. When he talks about just progress, the less blame, the less complaining, the more responsibility you're taking, the more constructive you are, that's what matters. Are you making a little bit of progress every day? Are you moving forward? Are you complaining less? Right? I think that's a fair way to think

• 7:49Ryan Holiday?

  about it. So, I thought the complaint, but I didn't say it. That's progress. But maybe next time I can just go, the temperature is what the temperature is. If I want to do this thing, it's what I have to put up with. So, you know, so that's what it is. It doesn't, thinking about it doesn't help me. It doesn't make me any cooler, right? It just makes me frustrated. And that's why we try not to complain. So, don't be heard complaining today, not even to yourself. That's the standard we're ascribing to. But could we just make some progress?

• 8:23Ryan Holiday?

  We just blame only ourselves, or ideally no one. That's progress. Let's do it. Let's work for it. Let's make ourselves a little bit stronger as a result.