You Know What’s Coming | The Sphere Of Choice

We worry about the future. About who might win an election we’re closely watching. About what some foreign leader might do. About the markets and your portfolio. About the climate. It’s so uncertain, we think, unpredictable and potentially overwhelming. But is it really? In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan explores why the Stoics viewed the soul as a sphere which is strengthened or weakened only through one's choices, and how meditating on this can set us off on the right foot in 2023.🎧 For a limited time, you can purchase The Daily Stoic ebook for only $1.99 on Kindle✉️ 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, including the Premium Leather Edition of the Daily Stoic Journal.📱 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.

• 0:38Ryan Holiday?

  You know what's coming. We worry about the future, about who might win an election we're watching closely, about what some foreign leader might do, about the markets in your portfolio, about the climate. It's so uncertain, we think, unpredictable, and potentially overwhelming. But is it really? If you've seen the present, Marcus Aurelius writes, in his own anxious and scary times, then you've seen everything, as it's been since the beginning, as it will be forever, the same substance, the same form, all of it. And he's not wrong. All the things you're worried about potentially happening in the future are, in fact, happening right now somewhere in the world. All the things you're not sure you could handle, people have been handling since the

• 1:22Ryan Holiday?

  beginning of time. Nothing new looms, only reruns of what you've already experienced or read about in the annals of history. You'll meet this future, Marcus reminds himself, with the same weapons you've met everything else in your life with. Whatever is coming, you can handle, because it's already here, because it's always been with you.

• 1:48Ryan Holiday?

  The Sphere of Choice. 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.

• 2:27Ryan Holiday?

  If the first step is to discern what is or isn't in our control, the second step in Stoic philosophy is to focus the energy on the things we have a choice about. The Stoics viewed the soul as a sphere that, when well tuned, well directed, was an invincible fortress against any trial or circumstance. Protected by our reason, this sphere of choice was like a sacred temple, and it is the only thing we truly possess in this life. We are the product of our choices, so it is essential that we choose well. This week, consider and reflect on the choices you have about your emotions, your actions, your beliefs, and your priorities. Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak and through the day and night.

• 3:12Ryan Holiday?

  There is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all that is outside your sphere of choice, regarding nothing else is your possession, surrendering all else to God and fortune. Epictetus, Discourses 4:4. Who then is invincible, the one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice? Epictetus, Discourses 1:18. The soul is a sphere true to itself. It neither projects itself towards any external thing, nor does it collapse on itself, but instead radiates a light which it shows itself the truth of all things and truth in it of itself. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11:12.

• 3:55Ryan Holiday?

  Well, here we are. We were talking about this last week. You know, you only have so many energy points, you only have so much, so many resources. How are you going to spend them? Are you going to spend them on what's up to you? Or are you going to spend them on what's not up to you? Are you going to emote about things and pretend that that makes a difference? Or are you going to spend your energy trying to do something about this thing that you found so upsetting? Right? So I think people think that Stoicism is about resignation. It's not. It's about allocation, right? It's resigned to the things that make no difference, where you can make no difference. But it's very focused, intensely focused,

• 4:38Ryan Holiday?

  on the areas that you can make a difference, right? So you could despair about the larger, you know, political trends in your country because you're one person and you're, you know, at odds with the majority, but... Maybe you can make a difference with your family, with your community. You could run for school board or mayor or something like that, right? What can you do as the individual? That's not to say the Stoics aren't interested in collective action. I'm just saying, I'm going to focus my energy where it's going to make a difference. And as a Stoic, I'd be indifferent to the things where I can make no difference. Right? Where can you make a difference? Right? You know, it gets tempting as a writer, right? Because our jobs as writers are to have opinions about things.

• 5:23Ryan Holiday?

  But it's a really dangerous way to go through your life, thinking that the world gives a shit about your opinion, right? And that having the opinion is the thing that matters. And it doesn't matter, right? What matters is what you do. What are the actions, right? We ended the year with the idea from the Stoics about turning words into works. Well, what are you providing? Where are you putting your resources? And are you putting them towards where they have input, where they have efficacy? Right? So a Stoic has resigned in some sense to, look, I'm not going to get involved in that nonsense. I'm not going to waste time regretting the past either. What I'm going to try to do is move forward. What I'm going to try to do is move ahead. What I'm going to try to do is make some change, where I can make some change.

• 6:05Ryan Holiday?

  And, and yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be indifferent to the, the things where that's not true. And that's what we're talking about here, right? That's what the sphere of choice is about. And, and, and it's an easy thing to forget. And that's why Epictetus is saying, keep it ready in the morning, think about it throughout the day, and think about it at night. Saying there's one path to happiness. It's giving up the things that are outside your sphere of choice, focusing on what else is in your possession, surrendering everything else. So it's being zen about the things that are not up to you. But there's a kind of invincibility in that zen, right? Because if it wasn't, if I didn't make the call, I didn't do it.

• 6:47Ryan Holiday?

  If it wasn't something that was up to me, I'm not going to, I'm not going to get upset by it. Remember Marcus saying, you don't have to have an opinion about this. You don't have to get upset. But you should be upset about your own choices. Why did I do that? Why didn't I do that? Why did I, you know, why did I make this mistake? Why did I do this thing again that I told myself I was gonna stop doing? Focus on you. Focus on your choices. Make good choices. That's how you exert control over the world. Something I, you know, I remind myself. You see what's going on in the world and you can despair. You can feel sad or you can go, look, I've got two little kids in my house who I'm responsible for. The biggest multigenerational impact I can have is in raising them well. And then I go, and this is something Seneca failed.

• 7:32Ryan Holiday?

  It's like Seneca spent all these years beating his head against the wall, trying to change Nero. He's affected far more people, had far more impact in his writing, where, which he did control. So I go, okay, and look, I, I'm not gonna, you know, yell at some, some person I know on social media for being, for being silly and have the impact on one person. But I, I am gonna sit down and write about this or talk about this on the podcast in a way that, that can reach a lot of people, right? Let's stay in our lanes. Let's do what we can do. Let's try to make a difference where we can. And if we all do that cumulatively, that is collective action and that does have a big impact. So this is a short lesson today. It's a straightforward one, but it's so hard.

• 8:15Ryan Holiday?

  And that's why Seneca's saying you gotta remind yourself constantly throughout the day, I'm gonna focus on what's in my sphere of choice. That's where I have impact. I'm gonna focus on allocating my energy properly. Not gonna waste it on regret, not gonna waste it on bitterness, on resentment, on anger, on fear, on worry, on hope. I'm gonna focus on what I control. I'm gonna make a difference there. That's what Stoic does.

• 8:45Ryan 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.