We Can’t Let Anything Rattle Us/Accepting What Is

Ryan tells the story of Athenodorus versus the ghost, and reads today's weekly meditation about accepting whatever comes your way, 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/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.

• 0:02Ryan 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.

• 0:32Ryan Holiday?

  We can't let anything rattle us. Yesterday was Halloween, and you may have heard your share of ghost stories. But it's unlikely that you heard the one about Athenodorus, the Stoic advisor to the Emperor Augustus. After all, aren't the Stoics supposed to be above such silly superstitions? Yes, they are. And that's sort of the message of the story. Sometime around the turn of the millennium, Athenodorus rented a large mansion in Athens that was purported to be haunted. Undaunted by the stories, Athenodorus set about putting his house in order. Then, on his very first night in the house, Athenodorus was visited by a ghost clapped in irons and dragging heavy chains.

• 1:17Ryan Holiday?

  There it was, the exact apparition he had been warned about. What did he do? Flee? Fall to his knees and pray? Not this Stoic. Instead, Athenodorus, in the middle of a writing session, motioned for the ghost to wait and return to his work. Only when he was finished, did he get up and follow the apparition into the courtyard, where it suddenly vanished. Sensing this was a message, Athenodorus marked the spot where the ghost had disappeared and then returned to tidy up his desk and go to bed. In the morning, he had workers return to the spot and ordered them to dig. Beneath the dirt, they found ancient bones in chains, which Athenodorus had reburied with honors in a public funeral. The ghost was never seen again by him or any other resident of the house.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  Did this really happen? Who knows? But there was a reason Athenodorus told this story to the young king, who was reportedly easily scared and a big believer in the supernatural. He was trying to teach Augustus a lesson. Stoics must always keep their head. Even the scariest situations can be resolved with reason and courage. And even if you believe in silly things like ghosts or superstitions, you can't let your life be ruled by them. You must be in charge. No excuses. We can't let anything rattle us today, tomorrow, whenever. And if you want to read more about Athenodorus, he's a fascinating character. I mean, some of the Stoics fought against kings, and Athenodorus was the Stoic advisor to the very first emperor of Rome.

• 2:46Ryan Holiday?

  You can read about him and many other less known, but equally fascinating Stoics in my new book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. It's a debut number one bestseller. I think you'll like it. And we even have signed copies in the Daily Stoic store. Just go to store.dailystoic.com. Of course, get the book at any retailer, online, offline, that you like. I think you'll love the book. Check it out.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer is a mantra for many. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." The Stoics, though, wanted to push past simply accepting what is. They wanted to be grateful and happy with what it is. Epictetus taught that we get a well-flowing life when we wish for what is going to happen, not what we want to happen. And Marcus Aurelius said we should meet anything that comes our way with gratitude, not, "I wish this was different, and I'll tolerate it." Instead, "I'm glad that this happened. It is for the best." So try that on for size this week.

• 3:54Ryan Holiday?

  "Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather that everything happens as it actually will, and then your life will flow well." That's Epictetus in the Inqueridion. "To be truly educated means this," Epictetus said, "learning to wish that each thing happens exactly..." As it does, that's Epictetus again, this time from the Discourses. "All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment, action for the common good in the present moment, and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way." That's Marcus Aurelius, 9:8. What I love about that Serenity Prayer, the Reinhold Niebuhr thing, is like, if you told me that that prayer was 1,000 years old, that that was a line in the Bible, I mean,

• 4:39Ryan Holiday?

  I'd be like, of course, it feels like it's always been with us. But it's incredible to think that Reinhold Niebuhr lived, like, until, I think, the 60s. I mean, he was the, one of the most prominent theologians of, of that time. But just the idea that, like, he was a regular person living relatively recently is just an incredible idea. I mean, look, I'm sure that taps into some sort of ancient idea, but, you know, I was reading this story about it once. He just likes, he said that at a talk, and then he scribbled it down on a piece of paper, and then it, sort of, the rest was history. And I think the reason it was so powerful is it does express that, that dichotomy of control of the Stoics so perfectly. It captures perfectly what we're all struggling with.

• 5:23Ryan Holiday?

  We know there's things that are up to us, and we know there's things that are not up to us, and we, we need to have courage to face the ones that are up to us this week, and the wisdom to not beat ourselves bloody on the things that are not up to us. That's the challenge. But I think the Stoics would say that's like beginner-level stuff. Intermediate stuff would be, you know, tolerating and accepting it being, you know, somewhat philosophical about it. And then the, the expert level, the amor fati is, is the decision to love it, to just greet everything with a smile, to say thank you for all of it. Pete Holmes, the comedian, he, he told me he tries to practice this idea of saying yes, please, to everything.

• 6:06Ryan Holiday?

  So, that it's, it's the thing that's already happening, so it doesn't really matter, but he's saying, yes, please, right? He's, he's just embracing it, leaning into it. And we can see how this is a recipe for a happy life, a, a happy existence. And, and if we don't, I think we're setting ourselves up. For a rough, tough week, you know what I mean? So as you think about everything that's going to happen over the next few days, try to, to say, "Look, some of it's going to be up to me, some of it's going to be up my choice, some of it's not going to be, some of the breaks are going to go my way, some of the breaks are not, but what I'm going to do is greet all of it with a smile, I'm going to say that amor fati to me, I'm going to practice what the Stoics call the discipline of assent, not going to fight against what's not up to me, I'm not going to wish things

• 6:50Ryan Holiday?

  were otherwise, I'm going to greet them as they are." To be truly educated means this, that's Epictetus again, as we said, learning to wish that each thing happens exactly as it does. Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will, and then your life will flow well. Wishing you a well-flowing week this week, just know, it's got to come from amor fati, and it's got to come from a place of assent. If you like the podcast that we do here, and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.