Beware Lost Footsteps

Our feet will always move in the direction of our focus. So look where you want to go. Stay focused on the path, keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. 👉 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?

  Beware lost footsteps. You know where you're trying to go. You have a goal you are aiming for. You're hard at work. You're doing what you can. This would be enough to get you there were it not for one thing: other people. Not other people in the sense of what Marx realist talks about, how they're obstacles and sources of difficulty, but rather that other people are sources of distraction and envy. If we were the only ones doing what we were doing, there would be clarity and simplicity. Well, that's not how life works. Seneca talked about how tricky it was to stay on the path you're supposed to be on when your path is crisscrossed by the paths of so many others. And worse of all, he says, crisscrossed by people

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  who have no idea where they're going. Not long ago, we spoke of Seneca as a cautionary tale. He himself was led astray by his peers in politics and power, and he ended up in a dark and shameful place in Euroservice. We quoted from a song by the band Bears Den, which has another lyric that makes this point.

• 2:05Ryan Holiday?

  Staying on our path will not be easy. The more we judge ourselves against others, the more we covet what they have or try to compete with them, the more likely we are to end up lost. We must find our true north and stick with it. Our feet will always move in the direction of our focus. So look where you want to go. Stay focused on the path. Keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Ignore the people crisscrossing you. It's the only way to get where you're trying to go.