This Is Almost a Miracle | The Epictetus Lesson Kyle Carpenter Lives By

Epictetus’s work changed Marcus’ life. Both of them have changed Ryan's life. Both of them will change your life—if you let them. -- Kyle Carpenter is a medically retired United States Marine who received the United States' highest military honor, the Medal of Honor in 2010. Kyle is the youngest living Medal of Honor recipient. Full episode with Medal of Honor Recipient Kyle Carpenter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j7mKmynuJk | Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6IokIO6zae5Uc539vZO1V9,Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kyle-carpenter-on-courage-survival-and-what-comes-after/id1430315931?i=1000764254274,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j7mKmynuJk 💡 We designed ourHow To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) http://dailystoic.com/ecourse as a personal field guide —part book club, part masterclass, part daily practice. It’s designed to help you not just read the words of Epictetus, but live them—to turn his timeless wisdom into real change in your own life and the lives of those around you. And if you get the guide before August 26th, you’ll receive a private invitation to an exclusive LIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday, where he’ll go deep on all things Epictetus, Stoicism, and how to apply these ideas right now, in today’s world. Head todailystoic.com/epictetuscourse http://dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse to learn more and get your book, guide, and bundle today! 👉 GetHow To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) http://dailystoic.com/ecourse & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life |dailystoic.com/life https://dailystoic.com/life/ 📚 Grab a signed copy https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/you-are-worth-it-building-a-life-worth-fighting-for?_pos=1&_sid=585dbe09e&_ss=r of Kyle’s memoir,You Are Worth It https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/you-are-worth-it-building-a-life-worth-fighting-for?_pos=1&_sid=585dbe09e&_ss=r, at The Painted Porch |https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/you-are-worth-it-building-a-life-worth-fighting-for?_pos=1&_sid=585dbe09e&_ss=rhttps://www.thepaintedporch.com/ 🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️ AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 VIDEO EPISODES https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 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.

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  This is almost a miracle, and too many people refuse to take advantage of it. It should not exist. It should not have survived. It was not intended for publication. It's totally and utterly unprecedented, as we have said many times. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is the unguarded private thoughts, the most powerful man in the world. In its pages, we have the philosophical insights and wisdom of someone who lived through a plague, lived through wars, lived through famine, lived through floods, lived through health issues, one thing after another. And somehow, this wisdom has proven not just relatable, but essential for people, for people like us for thousands of years.

• 0:59Ryan Holiday?

  But there's another wrinkle that makes this whole thing even more remarkable. Meditations would not have been possible without another book that should also not exist, that should not have survived, whose lessons were not intended for publication. Epictetus's Discourses. The teachings of a person who wasn't even given a real name. Epictetus means acquired one. A person born a slave who spent decades of his life being tortured. A man who was later unjustly exiled, who didn't even write down his own work, not only survived, but his teachings made their way to a young Marcus Aurelius, whom even more improbably

• 1:43Ryan Holiday?

  read them and put them to use. How does the thinking of one of the most powerless people in human history come to shape the thinking and the life of one of the most powerful people in history? That's a question we should want to know the answer to. Because here, in two of the most incredible books ever written, we are presented with all the wisdom necessary to live the good life, with everything we need to know to deal with the difficulties of life. Epictetus's work changed Marcus Aurelius's life. Both of them have changed my life. Both of them will change your life if you let them. That's why here in August, Daily Stoic is doing a deep dive into Epictetus. We're diving into Discourses. We're diving into the Incoridion,

• 2:28Ryan Holiday?

  not just to read them, but to put Epictetus's teachings into practice. We've created this awesome guide, How to Read Epictetus. It's a 14-module companion to his works. We've got videos. We've got context. We've got prompts. We've got exercises designed to help you make those teachings stick. So whether you're new to Stoicism, or you've read Meditations a dozen times, maybe you've even read Epictetus already. This will deepen that understanding, that philosophy, challenge how you live it. And if you join us this month with our guide, you not only can get the books as part of that, but you can join me. We're going to be doing a live session with thousands of Stoics all over the world to dive into the teachings of Epictetus. I hope to see you there. As I said, his work changed my life. I think it'll change your life.

• 3:11Ryan Holiday?

  I can't wait to see you in there. Just go to dailystoic.com/epictetus to find out more. And we'll get into it. Talk soon.

• 3:34Ryan Holiday?

  Do you know who Epictetus was, the Stoic philosopher?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:37Ryan Holiday?

  So Epictetus is tortured by his, he's a slave. So he's, but he has this cruel master who tortures him. He breaks his leg at one point. And so he has this, he's crippled the rest of his life, which is, I guess, the term they would use then. So he's coming at this not from like some tenured academic perch, but like a dude who really suffered and went through stuff. And his thing was that we, every situation has two handles. You know, we get to decide what we're going to try to pick it up by. And you can grab the handle that says, hey, I'm alive. This is good. Or you can grab the handle of like, why am I alive? This is horrible. And that handle is kind of everything.

• 4:18Ryan Holiday?

  The lens through which we decide to interpret the events or the position we're in is kind of the first step. Because if you get that one wrong, all the other steps are really hard. I feel like if you're like, I was singled out. This is horrible. This is insurmountable. You know, you can tell yourself a story that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No, just telling yourself, it's wonderful and I'm never going to suffer again, and it's all going to gray. That's the thing that those Vietnam prisoners talked about. Like the story you're telling yourself is, I'm going to be home by Christmas. This is going to be over really soon. That's also a bad handle because life doesn't really care that that's what you think.

• 5:02Ryan Holiday?

  But if you, if you, so it's, it's the key is sort of picking something that's both hopeful, but also got a kind of a grit and a determination to it. That's like, as you said, like, I just know I'm not quitting. Because as long as these people are helping me, I'm not going to give up. That's, that's not like, oh, you know, if you get in a car accident and the doctors say you're never going to walk again, just because you go away, I'm going to walk again. Sometimes that works, but not always. That's not magically going to give you your legs back.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, there needs to be accepting of reality in there as well. But I think there's tremendous power, and I would say that's even an understatement, to embracing the struggle.

• 5:50Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  You know, in the beginning, to embrace the unknown allowed me to, to step onto those yellow footprints at boot camp.

• 5:59Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  To try to become a Marine. And really, a life of service is, is especially in the military. It's kind of like an entire journey, whether that's four years or a whole career of unknown. And then through my recovery and just, and life in general is, is an unknown journey. You can, you know, prepare yourself. You can try to, to learn and, and to become resilient throughout the difficult journey. But you never really know what the day or what life in, in the big picture is going to hold. But, you know, I joined the Marine Corps to discover who I could really become and who I really was. And they say, be careful what you wish for sometimes.

• 6:44Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, you probably thought that was, you were going to find out who that was, you know, in battle, not in a hospital room. But one led to the other, and that's, you don't really know. That's what I've been thinking about on this book that I'm writing now. Because I'm, so I'm writing a book about Stockdale. And, you know, Stockdale goes to the academy. He thinks he's enlisting in World War II. He misses World War II. Then he thinks he's going to fight in Korea, like all his buddies do. Like Hudner wins the Medal of Honor in Korea. Like I have his orders where he's like begging to be sent to Korea. And they're like, it would be detrimental to your unit if we sent you to Korea. And so he does, so he keeps thinking that he's missing his moment, right?

• 7:28Ryan Holiday?

  Then he goes to test pilot school and he thinks, you know, that's, this is my thing. And then, you know, Jaeger breaks the sound barrier. He's not one of those guys. Then he misses like astronaut school. And he thinks he's, you know, like, yeah, he's like, what? You know, he keeps, but he doesn't know because you can't know that it's actually preparing him for this day in 1965, when he gets shot down. And then you can't even conceive then of what, you know, the next seven years are going to mean. But like, you don't know what life is preparing you for. All you can really do is be ready for something that you can't even conceive of.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You know, whether it's through that journey or that moment that you're shot down, you become a POW. You know, I encourage people when I speak or when I have engagements on the road to, you know, embrace that struggle.

• 8:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  One, I think to be realistic that, you know, life is a very difficult journey at times.

• 8:34Ryan Holiday?

  Sure.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  But it's also equally as beautiful. And most importantly, it's worth living and it's worth being here. Because those moments are impossible to describe how immediately, I won't even say dark, just avoid.

• 8:54Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Things become. But, you know, to know that, that life is difficult. And when you face that adversity, to embrace it.

• 9:04Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  And you really, I mean, in a way, I feel like you don't have another choice. I mean, if you want to sit exactly where you are right now or right in that moment of adversity for the rest of your life, that's really the only other option. But to embrace the struggle and understand that there's always a silver lining. There's always that light at the end of the tunnel. And when you reach that, which, you know, everyone heals in their own time and their own way. So I'm not telling you, I'm not one of those that say, oh, just, you know, brush it off, get back up and keep going. I mean, sometimes it takes an entire life to try to continue to get better. Sometimes it is just inching or crawling forward.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  But in the right time, to know that when you move forward, you hold on those silver linings, you reach that light at the end of the tunnel, you will not only look back and be proud of yourself, you'll realize that the journey was worth it. And you will be the strongest, more perspective-driven, more grateful version of yourself. And ultimately, in that moment, you know, it's never, there's never a finish line. But in that moment, when you're on the other side, you'll realize that you're the best version of yourself.

• 10:28Ryan Holiday?

  And don't you think this is like, I think having a physical practice is a metaphor for that, right? Like every time I run, every time I jump in cold water, every time I lift weights or whatever, I don't want to do it. But I'm glad after that I did it, right? It's, it's the feeling afterward that the shitty part is for. And that, you know, sometimes, and it's not just like, oh, hey, the endorphins, you know, you do the thing and then you get a little rush of endorphins at the end. Sometimes you don't, you don't feel anything at the end, but tired or whatever. Yeah. But like six months, six months later, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you're like, I am in the shape that I want to be.

• 11:10Ryan Holiday?

  Or you have to pick up something heavy and you can pick it up because you did the work. That's, that's what it is. And yeah, I think that's the metaphor for life is like in the shitty moments. And it's not just in your own life. It's like every relationship has these dips. And the good parts in the relationship are never those dips. They're at some point after those dips, if you don't quit. And, and just knowing like, yeah, it's, you get through the hard thing because of what's on the other side of the hard thing.