Advance, Forlorn Hope

The bad guys might get away with it. But that’s not going to stop us from doing what we’re supposed to do, from being who we are supposed to be. 📖Wisdom Takes Work https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work by Ryan Holiday is out NOW! Grab your copy here:https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation, designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Advance forlorn hope. Marcus Aurelius tried to arrest the decline of the Roman Empire, but he did not succeed. Before him, Cato tried to stop the fall of the Republic and similarly failed. Thrasseus and Helvidius and Rutilius Rufus fought valiantly against Nero, but he triumphed over them. In the end, it was Nero who stood over each of their corpses. Was it all pointless then? Should they have adapted instead of opposing? Should they have accepted the inevitable? That's what the Stoics seem to say sometimes, right? In his haunting poem Doubtful Dreams, Adam Lindsay Gordon wrestles with this very idea: "Failure, disillusionment, the impossibility of it all.

• 1:41Ryan Holiday?

  Vain dreams for our fathers cherished, high hopes in the days that were. All these men wondered and perished. No better than these we fare. And our due at least is their due. They fought against the odds and fell." He's alluding to the old military idea of soldiers being sent on a tragic, dangerous mission, yet they proceed anyway because that's the job, because that's the nature of being a soldier. It's the nature of being a stoic too. We may not win. Our mission might be impossible. The bad guys might get away with it. But that's not going to stop us from doing what we're supposed to do, from being who we are supposed to be.

• 2:26Ryan Holiday?

  The odds do not deter us. And neither do the difficulties. Life itself is a doomed mission. We are all going to die. We are all going to be forgotten. Should we do nothing and write it all off as meaningless then? No, we advance because in the end, the end is the same. So in the meantime, we might as well do our duty. We might as well do what's right.