What We Owe Each Other | Balance The Books Of Life Daily

The Roman Empire at that time was enormous. Jobs were scarce. Unemployment was high. Rapid expansion and economic stagnation had led to a sort of economic recession–one not unlike the one that looms globally right now. In response, the upper and ruling classes came together and instituted the Cura Annonae—the “care of grain.” The government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good. It’s an inspiring legacy that continues to this day–in fact, it’s one we’ve tried to not just speak about here at Daily Stoic but act on. If you would like to donate to Feeding America, just head over to dailystoic.com/feedingIf you live outside the U. S., check out Action Against Hunger —the global humanitarian organization that fights against hunger across nearly 50 countries.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

• 0:40Ryan Holiday?

  What We Owe Each Other. In what is almost certainly his greatest piece of writing, his essay on the shortness of life, Seneca is writing to his newly-retired father-in-law. Now, Seneca writes, "You will have more time to produce the balance sheet of your own life than that of the grain market." You see, his father was the longtime supervisor of Rome's grain dole. What was that? The Roman Empire at that time was enormous, with a population of some 45 million citizens. Jobs were scarce, unemployment was high, rapid expansion and economic stagnation had

• 1:20Ryan Holiday?

  led to a sort of recession, not one unlike the one that looms globally right now. And in response, the upper and ruling classes came together and instituted something called in Latin, "the care of grain." The government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good. And this continued until the last years of the empire. It was one of the most lasting and impactful of all of the Roman government programs. It's an inspiring legacy that continues to this day. In fact, it's one that we've tried to not just speak to here at Daily Stoic, but act on.

• 2:02Ryan Holiday?

  Hierocles was a Roman Stoic who spoke of the circles of concern. Our first concern, he says, was our mind, but beyond this was our concern for our bodies, our immediate family, then our extended family. And like concentric rings, he said, this needed to be followed by a concern for our community, our city, our country, the empire, our world. The work of philosophy, he said, was to draw this outer concern inward, to learn how to care as much as possible for as many people as possible, to do as much good for them as possible. The idea was that those in the outer circle need our help. More than 828 million people around the globe go to bed hungry every night.

• 2:45Ryan Holiday?

  More than 34 million people in America are food insecure, including over 9 million children. Like those who are fortunate enough to help in the times of the Roman Empire, we have to step up today. We have to illustrate those virtues of courage and justice toward and for and through others, to help people from going hungry, to alleviate someone's fear and worry, to put food on their table. And we can do this together. Last year, the Daily Stoic community came together with Feeding America and provided 2 million meals. That was double what we raised in 2020. And this year, we're once again increasing that goal as well as our donation.

• 3:27Ryan Holiday?

  I'm personally putting up the first $30,000 with an overall goal to raise $300,000. Every dollar we raise provides 10 meals, so if we hit that goal, that will be 3 million meals. And you can head over to dailystoic.com/feeding to contribute, and together we can make a small dent in a very big problem. Even just a dollar or two can mean everything to someone. We can't alleviate everyone's suffering or struggle, of course, but for the people we can help, that difference is huge. So let's do it. Let's be good Stoics today. I'd love for you to head over to dailystoic.com/feeding.

• 4:09Ryan Holiday?

  Even a dollar, a dollar is 10 meals, so I think you can contribute that, but hopefully the more you can contribute. Give till it hurts a little bit. Certainly, writing a $30,000 check hurt, but it also felt quite wonderful. And I'm urging you to give whatever that number is for you at dailystoic.com/feeding. And look, if you live outside the US, you can check out actionagainsthunger.org, the global humanitarian organization that fights hunger across nearly 50 countries. I'll put a link in the show notes for you to donate there. So let's all be good Stoics today. Let's fulfill our obligation. Let's do something for people in need at dailystoic.com/feeding.

• 4:55Ryan Holiday?

  Balance the books of life daily.

• 5:00Ryan Holiday?

  And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, "Every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand. Write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them." You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere books are sold. You can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. "One of the reasons we journal is as a way of gathering up life's experiences,

• 5:41Ryan Holiday?

  its insights, its frustrations, its unexpected struggles and triumphs, and more. In all of this, we are making a reckoning of our progress on life's way." Seneca, whose father-in-law was in charge of keeping the books on Rome's granary, liked the metaphor of balancing life's books each day. "Rather than postpone, our impulse each day should be to bring things as much as possible to completion."

• 6:10Ryan Holiday?

  Why? Because we never know what tomorrow might bring. Epictetus too would tell his students that the important thing was that they had begun, begun to practice, to learn, to get better. So, give yourself some credit this week for the journey that you're on, and reflect on how far you have come and how far you have left to go. And we have three quotes, two from Seneca, one from Epictetus. Seneca says, "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. Life's greatest flaw is that it is always imperfect, and a certain portion of it is postponed.

• 6:53Ryan Holiday?

  The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." And that's from Moral Letters 101. And then Seneca, and he's writing this to his father-in-law, he says, "Believe me, it's better to produce the balance sheet of your own life than of the grain market." He says this on The Shortness of Life. And then Epictetus says, "I am your teacher, and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God in things great and small, and your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things. Why then don't you complete the work? If you have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation, what is missing?

• 7:38Ryan Holiday?

  The work is quite feasible. It's the only thing in our power. Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me, and you will see." I was thinking about this idea of keeping life's books with the fact that I just finished my fourth go-around on the Daily Stoke Journal, and I know some of you have been on that path with me as well. So, as I cracked open a fresh one, that was pretty cool. And I'm about to finish my first go-around all the way through of my five-year One Line a Day journal. So, I've been doing it every day for five years. And...

• 8:19Ryan Holiday?

  Just to have that finished is like an incredible and cool experience. And to think of the reflection that went into this. And so, you know, when we talk about journaling, it's not just a sort of a cathartic thing. It's not just a moment of stillness in the morning or the afternoon, or whenever you happen to do it. To me, the power of it is that it is recording your progress as you go. When I look at some of the things that I wrote five years ago, when I think about what I was going through five years ago, I am proud of myself for the work that I have been putting in on myself.

• 9:04Ryan Holiday?

  There's a great line, it's not in today's entry, but Epictetus says, "Some people delight in improving their farm. Me, I delight in my own improvement day to day." And I think that's what the journal is really capturing, is that day to day improvement, that work that I've been putting in. And listening to this podcast is a little bit of work. Your journaling is a little bit of work. The reading you're doing is a little bit of work. The conversations you're having with a spouse or a friend or in the Daily Stoic Life Group, that's a little bit of progress. And all of this, it might not seem like much as you're doing each individual thing. But as George Washington liked to say, "Many mickles make a muckle," or as Xeno said, "Well-being is realized by small steps, but it's not a small thing." And so, as we chip away at this stuff,

• 9:49Ryan Holiday?

  as we make a little bit of progress, it might not feel like much today or in the moment, but cumulatively, it is adding up. It is taking you somewhere. And that is not to be underrated. And yeah, when I did the journal four years ago now, I didn't know where it would go. I didn't know how it would work. I didn't have this kind of daily journaling practice, like prompt based. But it's been a wonderful addition to my routine. And I've heard from so many people who've had the same experience. Anyways, it's been wonderful. And I hope you can do more than just follow along with the podcast, but you can grab a version of it yourself.

• 10:38Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.