What Are You Doing? | Make The Words Your Own

“We find ourselves baffled by our politicians. By our bosses. By our leaders. Why don’t they do something? Why can’t they just do the right thing? Why are they always putting profits over people? Why do they always hedge their bets?”Ryan explains why you must practice this philosophy, not just talk about it, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, then some analysis from me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

• 0:42Ryan Holiday?

  What are you doing? We find ourselves baffled by our politicians, by our bosses, by our leaders. Why don't they do something? Why don't they just do the right thing? Why are they always putting profits over people? Why do they always hedge their bets? You say this as you sit there in a job you've hated for the last five years. You say this when you avoid talking politics with your family because it's unpleasant. You say this when you make all sorts of compromises and trade-offs that you know are not right. You say this while you're wearing clothes made in a sweatshop, pay your employees less than you could afford to, travel to countries with horrible human rights records, drive cars that are horrible for the environment. It's not that you're a bad person, it's that you have a reason for all those things.

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  We all do, we have a million reasons. Then we like to direct a very pointed, very black and white accusing finger at everyone else who dares to do the same. Marcus Aurelius reminds us that what other people do and say is not important, or rather, it's not as important as what we do and we say. What do we have control over? Those politicians thousands of miles away who are just barely interested in our votes? Or our own decisions and actions on a day-to-day basis? Don't waste your time in vain against the hypocrisy of others. Start with the hypocrisy in your own home, because there's plenty of it there. What are you doing today, tomorrow? What injustices are you resolving in your own life?

• 2:09Ryan Holiday?

  What evil are you ceasing to participate in? What good are you doing? What courage are you showing? Your answers, not politicians or leaders, or your neighbors, or your bosses, are what counts, matters what you do, you do now.

• 2:28Ryan Holiday?

  Make the words your own. Many words have been spoken by Plato, Zeno, Chrysippus, Postidonius, and by a whole host of equally excellent Stoics. I'll tell you how people can prove their words to be their own by putting into practice what they have been preaching. That's Seneca from Moral Letters, translated in today's entry in The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. Now well over 1 million copies sold in something like 30 languages. We even have a really cool leather edition that should stand the test of time for you. You can check that out at store.dailystoic.com. Let's get into today's entry. "One of the criticisms of Stoicism by modern translators and teachers

• 3:13Ryan Holiday?

  is the amount of repetition. Marcus Aurelius, for example, has been dismissed by academics as not being original because his writing resembles that of other earlier Stoics. But, as usual, this criticism misses the point. Even before Marcus's time, Seneca was well aware that there was a lot of borrowing and overlap among the philosophers. That's because real philosophers weren't concerned with authorship, only what worked. More importantly, they believed that what was said mattered less than what was done. And this is as true now as it was then. You're welcome to take all the words of the great philosophers and use them to your own liking. They're dead, they don't mind. And feel free to tweak and edit and improve as you like.

• 3:57Ryan Holiday?

  Adapt them to the real conditions of the real world. The way to prove that you truly understand what you speak and write, that you are truly original, is to put them into practice. Speak with your actions more than anything else." This is actually one of my favorite little sections of The Boy Who Would Be King. I'll give this to you. He says, so there's basically a scene where Marcus has been taught by his teacher, Rosticus, for months and months and months. "He's gone through the sort of training montage to become emperor." And it said, "That night, Marcus had a dream that his shoulders were made of ivory, and on them rested the purple cloak of the emperor. When he awoke early the next morning, Marcus knew it was time.

• 4:40Ryan Holiday?

  It was his turn to make decisions, to carry the load, and to thank Rosticus the best way there is to thank a teacher, by living up to what they taught us."

• 4:51Ryan Holiday?

  The idea is, the way you honor the Stoics is not by quoting them, although quoting them is great. You honor the Stoics by living the words of the Stoics, by preaching them with practice, by turning the words into works, as Seneca says in a different part of his writings. You read the words and then you translate the words into the language of action and behavior. Right? And that's how you truly make a contribution to Stoicism in the world. Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one, as Marcus says. Read less, do more. When I sign Lives of the Stoics, I usually say deeds, not words, which every time I write that is a reminder to myself.

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  It's about what I do, not what I say in the pages. So I hope you can spend this time this week trying to put these words into practice, into proving that the words are actually yours as much as they were Chrysippus's or Plato's or Zeno's or Marcus Aurelius's. Put into practice what they have been preaching and in that, preach it yourself. Right? There's a line, I forget from which pope, but he says, "Preach all the time. Use words when necessary." Marcus Aurelius's philosophical reputation wasn't made with his writings. It wasn't made by meditations because it wasn't discovered till after his death, but he was considered a philosopher in life.

• 6:19Ryan Holiday?

  Cato didn't write anything down. Neither did Socrates. Their philosophy, their preaching was with their words, as it is for you.

• 6:30Ryan Holiday?

  Just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. That's the essence of virtue to the Stoics. That's what's on the sum and bottom challenge coin we have in the store. You can check that out, store.dailystoic.com. The point is, don't talk about it. Be about it. That's today's message.