There’s Two Ways It Goes Now | Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune

A Stoic doesn’t always win, but they never go quietly along. 🎥 Watch Matt Quinn, the lead singer of Mt. Joy, on The Daily Stoic Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6TTv2ui4CE 🎶 Lyrics mentioned are from the song Younger Days by Mt. Joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjrnAF5gFqc 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content coming soon: dailystoic.com/premium http://dailystoic.com/premium 📕 Books Mentioned: On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long If You Know How to Use It https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/philosophy19 by Seneca The Daily Stoic https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-leatherbound-signed-edition by Ryan Holiday Courage is Calling https://store.dailystoic.com/products/courage-is-calling-signed-edition-pre-order by Ryan Holiday Right Thing, Right Now https://store.dailystoic.com/products/right-thing-right-now by Ryan Holiday The Pyschology of Money https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-psychology-of-money-timeless-lessons-on-wealth-greed-and-happiness?_pos=2&_sid=7be53dcdb&_ss=rby Morgan Housel 📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast 🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, and Facebook 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?

  There's two ways it goes now. As Caesar overwhelmed and dismantled the Roman Republic, the Romans faced an impossible choice. Neither option was good, but it was all they had. They could allow it to happen, accept the bridle, as Plutarch put it, and with some humiliation, hold on to their estates, their status and their lives. Or they could resist desperately, hopelessly, against overwhelming odds. It's like the lyrics to the Mount Joy song. And by the way, we had a great conversation with the lead singer, Matt Quinn, on the podcast who came by the studio not long ago. It's one of my favorite verses. Let me play it for you real fast.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  There's two ways it goes now. All the cones crashing down. You could be the flame that burns out. You could turn and burn and die.

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  Cicero chose to go quietly along. Cato refused. Both were powerless to stop what was already in motion. Caesar was too strong. The Republic had already fallen. But Cato's resistance, even at the cost of his own life, made a lasting statement. It was a declaration about freedom and principles so powerful that it inspired the founding fathers of the United States 1,700 years later, when they built a new nation around those same ideals. A Stoic doesn't always win, but they never go quietly along. They don't default to convenience or comfort. Whether it's standing against corruption in the workplace or resisting injustices in society, a Stoic speaks out.

• 2:36Ryan Holiday?

  They act with courage and conviction, not just for themselves, but for the principles they believe in and for the generations who come after them. As the Mount Joy lyrics suggest, there is always a choice to let the flame burn out or to keep the fire alive. That's what a Stoic does. They fight to keep the light from going out, to preserve what matters. Because the Republic, literal or metaphorical, matters. And what you stand for, what you believe in, matters. It's worth the fight. It's actually funny. We had Matt Quinn on from Mount Joy pretty early on when the band was small, but I was a big fan. That was a remote one.

• 3:20Ryan Holiday?

  And then he was going to be in town two years later, and they're selling out the Moody Center. How incredible is that? What a cool arc. Anyways, I think the themes of today's email are obviously pretty relevant to what is happening in the world now, unfortunately. And obviously, these are some themes I explore in Courage is Calling and in Right Thing Right Now. So check some of those things out and do enjoy the interview.

• 3:56Ryan Holiday?

  Do not be deceived by fortune. This is the September 8th entry in the Daily Stoic. And our quote today comes to us from Seneca in his letter on consolation to Helvia. That's his mother. It's a beautiful essay. You can read it in On the Shortness of Life, one of my favorite little collections of Seneca's writings. But we'll get to the quote now. He says, "No one is crushed by fortune unless they are first deceived by her. Those who aren't pompous in good times don't have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it's precisely in the good times that they prove their strength against adversity." In 41 AD, Seneca was exiled from Rome to Corsica.

• 4:41Ryan Holiday?

  For what exactly, we're not sure, but the rumors were that he had an affair with the sister of the emperor. Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter to his mother, seeking to reassure her and comfort her in her grief. Her grief being that she missed her son. But in many ways, he must have been speaking to himself as well, scolding himself a little for this unexpected twist he was taking pretty hard. He had managed to achieve some measure of political and social success. Maybe he chased some pleasures of the flesh, but now he and his family were dealing with the consequences, as we all must bear for our behavior and the risks we take. How would he respond? How would he deal with it? What the very least, his instincts were to comfort his mother instead of simply bemoaning

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  his suffering. Though some other letters show that Seneca begged and lobbied for his return to Rome and to power, a request that was eventually granted, he does seem to have borne the pain and disgrace of exile fairly well. The philosophy that he'd long studied prepared him for this kind of adversity and gave him the determination and patience he needed to wait it out. When he found his fortune restored as he returned to power, philosophy prevented him from taking it for granted or becoming dependent on it. This was good because fortune had another turn in store for him. When the new emperor turned his wrath on Seneca, philosophy found him ready and prepared once again. It's a tension, right? Seneca says, "We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

• 6:10Ryan Holiday?

  You don't want to just be thinking of all the terrible things that could happen. You don't want to be biting your nails in anticipation of this or that." And yet, if you are naive, if you trust in fortune...

• 6:21Ryan Holiday?

  You are setting yourself up for pain. He says, never forget a fortune's habits of behaving exactly as she pleases. You know, as we become successful, as we get things, we start to go, this is how it should be. I earned this. I made this. It's mine. And maybe a lot of that is true. You're not the ultimate decider. Something can take that from you. Unfairness can take it from you. Injustice can take it from you. Tragedy can take it from you. The emperor can take it from you. So if you are deceived by fortune, that this is yours now, that this is the new normal, that this is stable, you have bought into an illusion and that you can be disabused of that illusion at any moment. How painful will that disillusion be? My favorite line is an invisible man.

• 7:05Ryan Holiday?

  It says, how does it feel to be free of illusion? It's painful and empty. We build our lives around these illusions, around the sense that this is how it should be. All is right in the world. You are begging. You are begging for life to visit some humility upon you. So you have to be careful. You have to be aware. We have to practice. We have to prepare. We have to train. We can't take any of it for granted. None of it is nearly as stable as it appears. That's what Seneca realized, not just at this exile, but early on in his life, when tuberculosis sent him to Egypt to convalesce. Nero turned to be insane. That's what life does. It reminds us. It doesn't go the way we want it. And I think it's problematic how often we say things like, this is unprecedented.

• 7:50Ryan Holiday?

  This is not normal. This has never happened. This has always happened. This is always how it's going to be. Normal is crazy. Normal is chaos. Normal is sudden reversal. I was just reading Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money. And he has this line in there. Unexpected things happen all the time, or things that have never happened before, happen all the time. That's the wisdom of what Seneca is trying to say there. That's what we prepare for, train in this philosophy for, is to be ready for precisely those kinds of events. So imagine, again, and if you haven't read On the Shortness of Life, pick up the copy there in The Painted Porch, if you could. I'll link to it in today's episode. There's something sweet about the fact that Seneca is the one exiled,

• 8:34Ryan Holiday?

  but he's writing the consolation to his mother. It's not his mother saying, you got this kiddo. It'll be all right. He's saying, Mom, I'm okay. It's going to be all right. He's comforting the people who are grieving and missing him.

• 8:48Ryan Holiday?

  That's what this discipline of philosophy can be. That's what Seneca practiced for. And that's what we're working towards. I'll leave that here today. Self-control, that's what Seneca was embodying there in his stoic, lowercase stoic, handling of the terrible injustice dealt to him.

• 9:11Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please, spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.