4 Stoic Quotes On Change To Kick Off The New Year

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2:40Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

3:30Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. New Year almost upon us. And I ended up getting to do this cool thing. I just got off this little Zoom session with one of my favorite people, one of my heroes, someone who inspires me so much. I've talked about her a bunch of times. Dr. Edith Eager. She wrote this amazing book called The Choice, which you absolutely should read. I carry it at the painted porch. She was a student of Dr. Viktor Frankl's, who, if you haven't read A Man's Search for Meaning, should absolutely read that too. Both influenced, I think, by the Stoics and both influenced, both came to their own sort of Stoic understanding in the crucible of human experience that was Auschwitz.

4:17And she comes to this idea that you have this choice, right? Don't control what happens. We control how we respond. What's the choice that we're going to make? How are we going to grow, be made better for it? How are we not going to leave with hate in our hearts? How are we? She has this great line where she says, you know, her revenge against Hitler is dancing with her grandchildren at age 95. And so, I mean, just the fact that she's 95 years old and still doing stuff is incredible and just a triumph of life and love and joy and all the things that she embodies. Anyways, I did this wonderful little session with her.

4:51She's got these great courses, which I'll link to in today's show notes. Her grandson, Jordan, runs them. And anytime they ask me to do something, I jump on it. I brought you a little one that I did earlier at the beginning of the course. And then I just did this other one we were talking about, sort of change. She had this conceit of, are you evolving or are you revolving, right? Are you doing the same thing over and over again? Were you evolving and growing and changing? And I thought with a new year upon us and with new year, new you, which we're doing here at Daily Stoic. And if you haven't signed up, there's not that much time left because we're going to kick it off on January 1st.

5:23If you want to evolve and grow with Stoics all over the world, I'd encourage you to join us. Sign up at dailystoic.com slash challenge, or you could sign up for Daily Stoic Life and get that challenge and all the challenges for free at dailystoiclife.com. The point is we're kicking off the new year with three weeks, 21 consecutive days of Stoic inspired challenges. And you can join us, as I said, at dailystoic.com slash challenge. But the riffing I'm doing today is on four Stoic quotes to kick off the new year. Four Stoic quotes about change, about evolving, about coming upon a new year and hopefully evolving and changing and growing.

6:02four of my favorite Stoic quotes. We've been riffing on them in the Daily Stoic emails recently as well, but I'll get right into it. Here's me riffing. Thank you to Dr. Eager for giving me the opportunity. Thank you to Jordan, her grandson, for giving me the opportunity. And thank you to the Stoics for laying down this great wisdom all these years ago. And thank you to you for listening. And I hope to see you in the Daily Stoic New Year, New Year Challenge as well.

6:35I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market, has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. you can make Whole Foods your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you.

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7:29Well, I'm honored. It's great to be with all of you again. My youngest woke up sick this morning also, and my wife and I were talking about how we feel like the oldest is just a day or so behind. So we're sort of girding ourself for what will be a long, a long week. But but as you said, that's life with kids. There's upsides and downsides. I was trying to think about what I would talk about today. And I was fascinated with this idea that you were sharing with me, the idea of sort of evolving versus revolving, right? Doing something new, changing, growing, getting better versus doing the same thing over and over again, which that now cliche saying defines as the definition of insanity.

8:21Trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And this is something that, of course, the Stoics talk quite a bit about. Stoicism being a philosophy designed to make one better, to hold one to a certain set of standards, to help a person realize their potential personally, professionally, morally, to get to this idea of erite or excellence, which we're all designed for. Obviously, this idea is something the Stoics return to quite a bit. And so I put together some quotes I thought it would be worth sort of sharing and then riffing on a little bit. The first, I think, is particularly well suited to where we are here now at the end of the year.

9:06Right. In publishing, they actually refer to the sort of Christmas, New Year's resolution sort of theme of books. You may have even seen a table with this exact slogan on it at your local bookstore, but they call it New Year, New You. Right. Which is why people buy diet books at the beginning of the year, why they buy self-improvement books at the beginning of the year, why they buy tear away desk calendars or any sort of motivational self-improvement, self-help style thing. It's this idea that, you know, we face a new year and it's a chance to start over or it's a chance to stop doing the things you were doing and start doing something new.

9:47Start doing it the way that you know you should have been doing it all along. There's a great quote from Epictetus, the hardiest of the Stoics, I would say, right? The Stoics span the spectrum from very privileged, Mark Cerellus, the emperor of Rome, and then Epictetus on the other end of the spectrum, a slave, a person who experienced torture and deprivation and poverty and forced labor. But Epictetus writes, says, we get it from his lectures. He says his question is, how much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? And I love that. Actually, one rendering is demand the best for yourself.

10:28The other rendering is demand the best of yourself. And I like the idea of demanding the best of yourself. For yourself sounds almost a little entitled, a little greedy, like I'm going to start really treating myself. Right. I think what he's saying is how much longer are you going to wait to start realizing your potential, to start doing the things that you know you are capable of doing, to start doing the things that you know that you can do? And I think that's really the essence of stoicism. And I like the idea that here you have this man who's been deprived of so much, who's experienced so much heartache and adversity and difficulty.

11:03And he's saying, how much longer am I going to wait to be the person that I know that I'm capable of being, to do the things that I know that I should be doing? And I love that question. I think it sort of hangs over us, right? How much longer are we going to wait? And the problem is we wait longer than we should, right? The other quote from Seneca is sort of in the middle between Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus as far as what his life looks like. More privileged, but has a real tough job, let's say. Seneca says the one thing that all fools have in common, he says, is that they're always getting ready to start.

11:40And I love that idea. Right. They're always getting ready. Right. So they're preparing. They're talking about it. They have plans. Right. They say, I'm going to do it when I retire. I'm going to say they say I'm going to do it when I've saved a little bit more money. They say I'm going to wait, as we said during the pandemic. Right. When things go back to normal. Right. We make up these reasons that make it feel eminent, that make it feel like we're about to do it, that allow us to feel like we're serious about doing it. And that's why we've got to buy these supplies or we've got to travel to this place.

12:17We've got to talk to this person. But really, we're just making excuses for why we're not getting started. I'll give you an example. As a writer, I hear from people all the time that ask me all these very specific questions about like what kind of computer I use or what programs I use or what's the best journal to use or do I like this kind of index card or that kind of index card? What kind of pen do I use when I'm taking notes? Right. And, you know, I would be OK with these questions if those people were writing and publishing. But almost invariably, these are people who are thinking about doing their first thing, for which they're totally optimizing for the wrong variables.

12:58Right. For me, it might make a difference if I switch from this program to this program or if I keep this routine or that routine. But if you haven't started, the main thing is that you start. Right. The main thing is that you get started. But we always come up with reasons why we don't have to start just yet. And this leads me to the next quote. This is from Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius says, you could be good today. Instead, you choose tomorrow. Right. So it's the same thing as Seneca. It ties into a great concept from a writer I love, a guy named Steven Pressfield, wrote this book called The War of Art.

13:34And he has this great line in there that's similar to what Marcus is talking about, which She basically says, nobody says I'm never going to do it. We say we're going to do it tomorrow, right? We say we're going to do it later. And this is what lets us off the hook, right? If we said, I'm scared. If we said it's too hard. If we said, I don't think it's going to work. If we said it's impossible. If we said the game is rigged, then we would have to face the defeatism in our attitude, right? We would have to face that we're giving up, that we're making excuses. But we don't, right? That's why we say, oh, I just need these resources.

14:06is I just need to do this. I just need to practice. I just need to get a little bit ready. This is why Seneca is saying that that's what we all have in common. We're always getting ready to start. We're always delaying to live. And we can't, right? We can't because we don't know how much time we have. And we're never going to finish a thing that we don't start. And then as we go in here into this new year, the other Marcus quote that I wanted to share with you that I think is so powerful and I think fits into this idea of starting afresh. He talks about how crazy it is that we just keep going on being the same people that we've always been.

14:48And he compares it to the animals in the Colosseum or the gladiators in the Colosseum in ancient Rome. He says the ones that are torn to pieces, that are bleeding, that are begging to be held over to do the same thing again tomorrow, right? Talk about revolving instead of evolving. He says, we keep being mauled and degraded by the life we're living. He says, we're like those animal fighters at the games, torn half to pieces, covered in blood and gore, still pleasing to be held over tomorrow, to be bitten and clawed again, right? This is that definition of insanity. It didn't work for us in 2023.

15:27It didn't work for us in 2022. It didn't work for us in 2021. There's some part of us that's not fulfilled. There's some part of us that wants more. There's some part of it that knows that we're not fully being what we're capable of being, that understands we were put here to do and to be more. But we make up excuses. I mean, even the idea of resolutions, that's kind of the funny part, right? Like we're talking about it here in early December and we go January 1st, that's when I'm going to get serious about it. Not now, right? You could do it now, but instead we choose tomorrow, we choose the new year.

16:05But let's stipulate that the new year is fine, right? That we're going to do it on January 1st. Great, right? Because we have to. We can't keep being the people that we've been. We can't keep doing the things that we've always done. Or else we stay that person, right? Or else we don't become the person we're capable of becoming. I had this experience in my early 20s. I had this marketing career. I knew I wanted to be a writer. I took this corporate job as a way to learn things, experience things to make money. So eventually I could support myself as a writer. And I remember every year I would go to this conference in New York City.

16:43There's a thing called Advertising Week where all the marketers and advertisers get together at this big event in New York City. And I remember the first year I went, I was probably the youngest person there. I was the only person dressed like this instead of dressed in a suit. And I remember thinking, I'm so glad I'm not like all these other sort of faceless people wearing a suit, working in an industry that doesn't exactly contribute to making humanity better in any way, that doesn't actually make a difference. It's just sort of, you know, surfing off the value created by the inventors of these companies, right?

17:18The leaders of these companies, the people who work at these companies. And I remember thinking that. Then I remember thinking it the second year and I remember thinking it the third year. And then I remember at some point in the third or the fourth year, my illusions or my delusions were no longer sustainable. And I remember thinking, if I keep coming here every single year, I'm going to be one of these people in the suit eventually. Right. That this distinction that I'm telling myself that I'm not the same, that I'm only here for a short amount of time, that this is a way station for me. At some point, that ceases to be true.

17:55Right. At some point, I have stopped growing, stopped changing. And this thing I'm telling myself about how someday I'm going to make the leap to be a writer. Someday I'm going to get out of this racket. Someday I'm going to sort of demand that best for myself. Well, that will cease to be true, right? Because life gets in the way. We have obligations. We have commitments, right? We think that when we become financially secure, it'll make us more willing to take risks. But in fact, what it often does is the exact opposite. We become more risk averse because now we're comfortable. Now we're used to how things are.

18:31And so shortly thereafter, I did make that jump. And it was very scary. It felt like I was blowing up my life. But it set up the transition that I was meant to make and that I was excited to make and that I sort of get to reap the benefits of to this day, which is I left that corporate job. I started writing my first book. I sold that book. And, you know, now all these years later, I get to wake up and do what I love to do every day. And so this idea is that we have to try new things and we can't do it later. We have to do it now. How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself?

19:08That's Epictetus' question, right? Are you going to be that fool that has the thing in common with all the other fools, which is you're always delaying. You're always making excuses. Are you going to be good today? or are you going to be good tomorrow? That's Mark Surreale's question. And then are you going to be continued to be degraded and mauled by the life you're living? Are you going to beg to be held over to do the exact same thing again tomorrow or next year? Or are you going to make those decisions now, make those choices now? Are you going to stop living the definition of insanity and try that new thing?

19:42To me, those are some questions to ruminate on here at the end of the year so that we can go into 2024, if not a whole new person, right? I think maybe the delusion there in New Year, New You is the idea that we're going to magically be transformed into a totally new person. It's never like that, right? Even my own transition to go from marketing to a creative profession like writing and artist life. You know, I stayed on as a consultant and I kept writing and I did one book and another book. And it was a slower evolution than it might seem in retrospect, as I think most transitions are. They're not as abrupt as maybe they need to be.

20:28You don't always have to burn the bridges or the boats behind you. You can transition. You can take small steps towards that thing. But the key thing there is that you do have to take those steps. You do have to make those changes. You have to stop waiting, right? You have to stop putting it off till tomorrow. And ideally, you have to do it now. That's what evolution is about. It's these small transitions, changes, improvements that add up cumulatively over a long period of time. Those were my thoughts on stoicism. And I'm looking forward to riffing on all of this with all of you. The idea as I was sitting there with the team trying to come up with these stoic inspired challenges was to set me up, to set them up, to set you up so that whatever happens in 2024 and beyond, you can say, this is precisely what I trained for.

21:22And that's what we've been training for, right? For the last five years, thousands and thousands of Stoics all over the world have joined me in the New Year New Challenge that we do here at Daily Stoic. We started it way back before COVID-19 was a thing, before the world was as crazy as it is right now. And the idea was like, how do we set it up so the first three weeks of the year, 21 consecutive challenges, one per day, built around the best in Stoicism could set us up so we could make better decisions next year, tougher for next year, so we could have plans for that the next year we could have better habits.

21:58We could, we could just be who we want to be in the year. And so as we sit here on the eve of this new year, which is going to be here before you know it, think about the downsides of not taking control of your life. Think about what it would cost you to not live up to your potential next year, but not changing your ways. Think about all the things that are out there that you are not prepared for. And, and what just a little investment, a little effort towards rectifying that could bring you. Don't let it happen. Run some war games, seek out some challenges, have some fun with me and fellow Stoics.

22:29Keep growing. Don't stay the same. Don't portray your potential. Demand more of yourself in 2024. And one of the ways you can do that is by joining me in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. And you can head over to dailystoic.com slash challenge to sign up. It starts on the first. So you got to do it now. Grab your spot before. Well, we're not running out of them, but before you forget, before your courage fails you. before it gets away from you, which is what we hear from people happening every year. So sign up dailystoic.com slash challenge. You're going to be hearing a lot more from me about it, but why don't you just sign up right now?

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