We Are All Tied Up Together

"These are rough times. Then again, times are always rough for someone. If not for us, then for someone else. And according to the Stoics, that means they’re rough for everyone. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus Aurelius wrote. Meaning: we’re all in this together. Our fates are all tied up with one another. "Learn more about what you can do to help in today's Daily Stoic Podcast episode. Donate to Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Community First! Village here: https://geni.us/ozIaIW7****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: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: 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.

• 0:06Ryan 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 the 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.

• 0:29Ryan Holiday?

  We are all tied up together. These are rough times. Then again, times are always rough for someone. If not for us, then for someone else. And according to the Stoics, that means they're rough for everyone. "What's bad for the hive is bad for the bee," Marcus Aurelius wrote, meaning we're all in this together. Our fates are tied up with one another's. This has always been true, but never more so in our lifetimes than during this pandemic. Worldwide quarantines, hyper-contagiousness, disease vectors on every continent, all of

• 1:09Ryan Holiday?

  this together has made that fact undeniable and relevant beyond simply surviving the virus. Homelessness isn't just an unpleasant blight on an otherwise beautiful city. For example, it is a roiling public health crisis. Income inequality isn't just an economic debate. In a time where the safety of the many depends on the ability of people to stay home as much as possible, suddenly it too is a public health crisis. A Stoic can't just throw up their hands at these intractable, difficult issues. We can't just say, "Oh, the government has tried and failed. Smart people have tried and failed. It must be

• 1:50Ryan Holiday?

  impossible to solve." No, a Stoic needs to respond like Alan Graham did in Austin, Texas. When Alan saw the rise in homelessness issue in his city, he didn't despair. He started helping people, delivering meals through mobile loaves and fishes. But he wasn't content to just service the problem either. He wanted to solve it. So he created Community First Village, a 51-acre master plan development that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness. Within the village, there is also Community Works, which provides micro enterprise opportunities to previously

• 2:31Ryan Holiday?

  homeless people so they can make a living, they can learn new skills and build lasting relationships. He's personally taken hundreds of people off the streets, and he did it with more than just charity. He did it the Stoic way, by empowering them to do it for themselves. We are all in this together. Each of us has agency in this life, even through adversity, even when bad times or tough problems have befallen us. Our job as citizens and as leaders is to seize our own agency and to help others realize their own. In this, we help them and ourselves. We help the hive by helping the individual, and by helping the hive, we protect

• 3:11Ryan Holiday?

  ourselves and the people we care about most. One person can change history. One person can make a difference, for better or for worse. Is this pandemic itself not proof of that? An example of the self fulfilling prophecy of small thinking, defeatism, and cowardice by leaders across the planet. For thousands of years, from Zeno and Cleanthes, who were quite poor, to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, who held great power, the Stoics have fought against this tendency to aim small and to give in to hopelessness. They have stood up when things broke down. They have tried to do their best to help make the world a more just place and to ease suffering where they saw it. Each of us has to do what we

• 3:56Ryan Holiday?

  can for ourselves and for our community. That's not just our job, it's in our own self-interest. And because we at Daily Stoic are big supporters of what Alan is doing over at Community Village, we are donating $100,000 to help Community Village expand to 500 homes and help take even more people off the streets. Other generous donors and volunteers are helping with this mission right now and even matching contributions. If you're interested in finding out more or finding a way to contribute, please go to mlf.org/community-first. That's mlf.org/community-first. And you can donate directly to them and have your contribution matched.