50 Harsh Stoic Truths That Will Improve Your Life

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1:05Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

1:44Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Look, the Stoics aren't always nice. Epictetus talked about how, look, when you're offended, it's your fault. You're complicit in taking offense. That's part of what I meant in that they don't come across as nice because we're a little snowflakey these days. But I think what I mean when I say that the Stoics weren't always nice is that the Stoics believed that Stoicism was kind of a cure for our ills. Actually, Epictetus and Masonius Rufus would talk about how the philosopher's school is like a hospital. The reason you go there is because you're sick.

2:27There's something wrong. And so not all treatments, not all remedies are fun. Medicine doesn't always taste good. you know setting a broken bone hurts i remember i got an x-ray once when i broke my uh broke my elbow and as they bent my arm to get it in the x-ray machine it was so painful i i literally passed out and hit the floor i woke up not knowing what had happened right we to get examined to get treatment to hear what we need to hear sometimes we got to hear some unpleasant or harsh truths which is today's episode it's not going to be a negative episode i promise But the concede here is here are some harsh Stoic truths that will improve your life.

3:14And I recorded this walking around New York City when I was there back in June for the launch of Right Thing Right Now. Sort of running in between interviews and events and seeing some friends. I tried to record, you know, little insights from the Stokes here to there. So you might hear some street noise. Sometimes I'm in a car. You can watch a YouTube video of it. I'll link to that in today's show notes if you want to see it. in addition to listening to it. But in the meantime, let's just get into it. Here are harsh Stoic truths that will improve your life.

3:47The Stoics have been delivering harsh truths for centuries. It's what they did. Epictetus said that you should be hurt after you experience Stoic wisdom. He said it's like you entered a hospital. When you left, you're going to be in pain because you weren't well when you entered. I'm Ryan Holiday, and in today's episode, I'm gonna give you 50 hard stoic truths. Some of them are gonna challenge you. Some of them are gonna make you uncomfortable. You're gonna disagree with some of them, but that's okay. They're not supposed to go down easy, but they will make you better. You're not being harmed.

4:17You're not being screwed over. You're not being challenged. You're being, Epictetus said, paired with a strong sparring partner. Life is helping you. Life is making you better. Life is teaching you. Life is making you stronger. You wanna wrestle with this. You pick hard sparring partners. Pick people who you get better for wrestling with. You can't learn that which you think you already know. That's Epictetus. Ego is the enemy because when you're a know-it-all, you're right. It's impossible for you to know anymore. You know everything that is possible for you to know. You're not that important.

4:47Mark Sebelius, he says, run down the list. All the people that came before him, he says, what happened to all these famous names, these names that used to sound so familiar? You know what they are now? They're like what Taylor Swift talks about. Who's who? Who's that? We all disappear. We all recede into memory. We are all forgotten. Another way to spell perfectionism, Churchill said, was paralysis. They are the same thing. You think it's that you have high standards, but it's actually an excuse not to have to do things. Positive visualization is bullshit. You should be doing negative visualization.

5:19The Stoics say premeditatio malorma, premeditation of evils. Seneca says nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectations. That means we consider all the possibilities. He says, exile, war, torture, shipwreck. We should think about all that. Why? Because he says, the unexpected blow lands heaviest. He says, a leader can't say, wow, I didn't think that would happen. You have to think about it. You have to anticipate it. This is different than being anxious. This is different than dreading. You think about it. You prepare for it. And then you're ready, whatever happens. You're never going to escape change.

5:51Life is change. Marcus really reminds us that being born was a change. Death is a change. Every good thing in your life came from a change. So did bad things, of course. but everything in life has changed. You cannot escape it. You can only accept it. You can only embrace it. If you don't take the money, they can't tell you what to do. That's a line from a great New York City photographer. But it actually goes all the way back to stoic philosophy too. Zeno refused to dedicate his books to kings. He didn't want to take money from them. The idea is when you curry favor the way that, for instance, Seneca does with Nero, makes you vulnerable and they can boss you around.

6:23They own it. But when you maintain your independence, when you can fulfill your own needs and you can support yourself, You have the freedom, you have the power to make choices. You have command over yourself. It all gets rendered very, very insignificant very, very quickly. There's a great Roman poet, and he said, you know, in life, Alexander's ambition was bigger than the world. The world wasn't big enough to contain him. And yet, he says, in the end, a coffin was sufficient. Marcus Reulis would say something very similar about Alexander the Great. He said, you know, Alexander the Great and his mule driver, they both died, and the same thing happened to both.

6:55And the same is true for you. You're being crazy letting them determine whether you did a good job or not, whether you're happy or not, whether you're a success or not. Marksworth says ambition is tying your happiness to what other people do and say and think. Sanity, he says, is tying it to your own actions. So what part of the process, like when I work on my book, the writing of the book is up to me, right? How it does on the bestseller list, what people think about it, what the review is saying, that isn't up to me. So my definition of success is an internal one. I'm focused on the parts of it I control.

7:25Do I want other people to like it and care about it? Sure, I guess it's nice to have, but it's extra. It's not why I do it, because to want that, or worse, to need it, is to be insane and, of course, incredibly vulnerable. It always takes longer than you think, even when you take that into account. The Obstacles Away came out in 2014, so that's 10 years to today. But it took six, maybe seven years for it to hit a bestseller list. It takes longer than you think. You think you deserve it now. You think it'll happen now. It takes so much longer than you think it's going to take. That's just life.

7:58It stares you in the face. Mark Struthers says, no role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you're in right now. He was the emperor of Rome, yet he was able to be philosophical, to follow virtue. On the other end of the spectrum, Epictetus was a slave. He was tortured. He didn't control his body, his life, his time. And he was a philosopher. No role. Nothing excludes you from being a philosopher. You can read these books. You can think these things. You can act on these ideas. You can apply them in your life. You can follow virtue. You can achieve erite. You can acquire wisdom. That's what philosophy is.

8:34It's not high-minded abstract ideas. It's something you apply to your actual life, to your real job, high or low, big or small. Nothing can stop you from that. It's not unfortunate that this happened to you. Mark Sreelis writes this to himself in meditations. He says, it's fortunate that this happened to you. He says, because I've remained unharmed by it. He was saying that his character hadn't been affected. But I think more importantly, he's saying, now I get to do something with it. That's what the obstacle is, the way it means. Now I get to do something with it. It's good that it happened to me instead of someone else because I'm the one that's uniquely suited, uniquely trained to do something with it.

9:10It's going to take a lot out of you. It's going to take more out of you than you think you have. Mark Sturilius, in one passage in Meditations, is trying to amp himself to get out of bed in the morning. He goes, it's warmer under the covers here. I like being comfortable. He says, you weren't made to be comfortable. You weren't made to huddle under the covers and be warm. He said, no, people who love what they do, they wear themselves down doing it. So there's a limit on the eating and the sleeping and the fun side. You got to get out there. You got to do what your nature demands. And you got to understand it's going to be hard and it's going to take a lot out of you.

9:41It's not that you read, Epictetus reminds us. It's what you read. If you're offended, it's your fault. Epictetus says, you are complicit in taking offense. The remark was objective. The thing just was, and then you decided that it hurt you. You decided you were harmed by it. It's not actually true. Another person can't hurt you. You are complicit in taking offense. You just got to mind your own business. Mark Cerullis reminds us, like, we should stop trying to escape other people's faults. We should try to escape our own, Mark Cerullis tells us. Most of what you do is totally inessential. Mark Cerullis says that that's a question we have to ask ourselves.

10:16He says we have to ask ourselves, is this essential? Because so much of it is trivial. So much of it is unnecessary. So much of it is inefficient. And he said when you eliminate the inessential, what you get is the double benefit of doing the essential things better. So you want to constantly be eliminating, constantly paring things down, constantly asking yourself, do I really need to be doing this? Is it important? Is it going to move the needle? Why am I doing it? How could I do it better? You eliminate the inessential and you do the essential better. Pleasure passes quickly, but the shame remains.

10:48That's the harsh stoic truth. But the positive side of that is the reverse. When you work hard for something, when you put in hard labor on something, that passes quickly. But the pride, the virtue, the good that comes out of it, it remains. Poverty isn't just having too little. This is what Seneca said. Just because you have money doesn't mean you're rich. It says poverty is wanting more. So you could be a very wealthy, very successful person, but if there is not enough, if you are constantly craving and hoping for more, then you're very, very poor. Just reading a book is not enough. You have to reread the book.

11:21Seneca says we have to linger on the work of the master thinker. Talking about reading it once and again and again and again because each time we read the book we find something new. We bring something new to it. We take something new out of it. You should probably shut up. You should probably shut up. Zeno said it better to trip with your feet than with your tongue. Cato said he would only speak when he was certain that what he was about to say was not better left unsaid. So much of what we say doesn't need to be said. It doesn't matter. It's trivial. It's not important. and it's also probably incorrect.

11:49So catch yourself before you're going to say it. Catch yourself before you speak and ask yourself, is this better left unsaid? The thing is not the problem. It's your opinion about that thing. The Stoics say the event is objective. It's indifferent to us. It's our opinions about it that are the problem. By the way, the thing is not asking for your opinion. It doesn't give a shit about your opinion. You got to stop wasting time talking about this stuff, arguing what a good person is like, what the right thing is, these complicated virtue ethics. Mark Struy says, waste no more time arguing what a good person is like, just be one.

12:20You don't get rich acquiring things, acquiring money. Epictetus says it's not about having many things, it's about having few wants. If you have everything you need, if you have enough, if you feel sufficient, then you are very rich. Would it also be nice to pair that with having a lot of money? Sure. But you could also have very little and feel like enough. Feel good. Get to a place where you feel like you have enough and you are rich when you pair your wants down when you don't need anything from anyone or anything outside your control that to the stoics is true wealth two ears one mouth for a reason you're talking way too much the less you talk the better you'll do and by the way it's worth remembering that talking about something and doing it fight for the same resources the more you talk about it the less energy and resources you have to actually do it

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14:45Your problem is that you want the third thing. Marcus really says, okay, you did something good for someone. They received that benefit. That's awesome. Transaction concluded. You don't need the third thing. Recognition, gratitude, appreciation. You don't need the world to throw you a parade. Don't need acknowledgement. And you didn't even do anything special you did your job which is to do good to be good to help people to be kind you did the right thing that's enough the grudge you're holding it's meaningless mark's true says look at the people who held these grudges who raged about things who held on to things he says where are they now they're dead and gone the grudge went nowhere and the same is going to happen to your thing whatever it is you're upset about however significant it was for you eventually it disappears along with you.

15:30So how can you work on letting it go? How can you move on? How can you process? How can you not carry it around? How can you not let it consume you? This is what you trained for. That's the whole point of philosophy, Epictetus says, to be able to say to whatever situation you find yourself in, whatever the moment is, big or small, positive or negative, you're supposed to be able to say, this is what I trained for. This is what it was all leading up to. This is the point of all of it. This is what I trained for. And now I'm going to apply all these things that i learned that i've been reading about that i've been talking about that i've been experimenting with all the experiences that i've gained up until this point this is what it was all for it's called self-discipline for a reason it's not something you wield against other people in meditations marcus aurelius says remember tolerant with others stripped with yourself they're your standards they're your goals they're your beliefs you can hold yourself to them but not other people seneca says we're all slaves to something.

16:28He points out a powerful Roman who was a slave to his mistress. He talks about a Roman politician who's a slave to his ambition, to the crowd. Maybe you're a slave to money or food or wine. He says even slave owners were slaves to their estates. So we're all slaves to something. He says we should look very suspiciously at any habit or practice or item that has power over us. We cannot go without that controls what we do and say and think and where we go. If everyone agrees with you, then you're not really thinking originally at all. Chrysippus, one of the early Stoics, he said, if I wanted to be part of the mob, I wouldn't have become a philosopher.

17:05So it's okay to have controversial opinions. In fact, you should have a few controversial opinions. You should think for yourself. Don't do what everyone else is doing. Don't think what everyone else is thinking. Think for yourself. The obstacle is not the problem. You're the problem. Your opinions about it are the problem. Your orientation towards it is the problem. The Stoics say the obstacle is the way, right? The impediment to action advances, actually stands in the way, becomes the way. What do they mean by that? Marcus Reyes is saying that there's something you get to do because of this, right?

17:33There's things that you can do now that you couldn't do before. There's an opportunity for you to act with courage or discipline or justice or wisdom. There's something you can do now that you couldn't ordinarily do. We can't let a crisis go to waste. We have to use this thing in front of us. Yeah, it seems like an obstacle but now there's something we get to do because of it if we do it you have two choices seneca says you can laugh or cry democritus one of the philosophers he cried he despaired at how awful and evil the world was seneca pointed out heracletus he laughed at it right we think of the stoics as humorless but they weren't instead of despairing instead of being angry instead of being depressed out of any of those negative emotions they decided to laugh at the absurdity of life they decided to laugh at the pain that life can inflict on us because it's the one part of it we control.

18:19We control our response to it so we might as well find humor in it instead of pain and suffering and anger. You're not going to be successful because you haven't defined what success is. You haven't really thought about where you're trying to go. Seneca says that if you don't know what port you're sailing towards, no wind is favorable. If you don't take the time to really go, where am I trying to go? What does that look like? Why am I interested in that? Why is that important? Is that in my control? You're not going to be able to make the individual day-to-day part by part decisions that will allow you to actually get there you won't know how to respond properly the things the opportunities into the obstacles that you face along the way look you don't control what happens you don't control other people you don't control the weather you don't control the world you really don't control anything at all but you do control how you respond to those things that's the truth you don't control other people or places you control how you respond what good is posthumous famous to accept it won't do you any good you'll be dead and more importantly mark's really reminds us that the people in the future aren't going to magically be better or smarter they're going to be just as stupid and annoying and misinformed as they are now so stop chasing posthumous fame exist in the present do what you can now do what's right now it's not just that you read you have to read a lot general james mattis a modern day stoic he says if you haven't read hundreds of books about what it is you do about your craft, about your chosen line.

19:42He said you are functionally illiterate. That's such a great line. Being literate is awesome. How literate are you? The Mark Twain line about the person who doesn't read has no advantage over the person who cannot read. It's not just that you can read, it's you have to read deeply. You have to read everything available. You have to read things you agree with, things you don't agree with. You have to be more than just literate. You have to be functionally literate. You have to know what it is that you do. You have to understand this life thing inside and out. The world, life can be amazing. You're being too idealistic.

20:15In meditation, Mark Surrealis writes to himself, he says, remember, you don't live in Plato's Republic. He says, don't go around expecting utopia. Don't expect people to be perfect because they're not. That was actually the knock in Rome against the great stoic Cato. Cicero said, look, this guy's problem is that he thinks he lives in Plato's Republic instead of the dregs of Romulus. He was too high-minded, too idealistic, and he couldn't be pragmatic and practical enough to exist and work with other people to solve imperfect problems with imperfect solutions. But that's part of Stoicism too. You're going to die.

20:47That's the Stoic idea of memento mori. Life is very, very short. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. You could go at any moment. And in fact, you will go at some moment. And that moment could be very, very soon. The people you meet are going to suck. This is the harsh truth that Mark Sturlus opens meditations with. He says they're going to be jealous and annoying and difficult and stupid. They're going to be all these things. We know they're going to be these things. We have to go into the day with our eyes wide open. That's the harsh truth part of it.

21:15But the uplifting part, the happy part of it is the second part. He says, but they can't implicate you in ugliness. He says, more importantly, remember that you're made to work together, that life is incomplete without those kinds of people, and that we're related and that we share an affinity and a bond for each other. We can't be surprised by it. We can't let it suck us down and we can't let it change us for the negative. We still have to be good. We still have to do our job. We still have to play our part. You're harming yourself. Mark Stroud says it can only harm you if it harms your character.

21:45What he means is the thing happens to you. They stole from you. They lied to you. They did something to you. But then it's in how you respond. If that makes you worse, that makes you do something unethical, if it makes you something other than what you should be, that's where the harm comes from. The harm comes in your reaction and how you're responding to the thing. What they did to you is nothing if it doesn't touch inside you, if it doesn't change who you are, what you do, how you treat people. You think you're a good person, but you're hurting people. Mark Sreus reminds himself in meditations, he says, remember you can commit an injustice by doing nothing also.

22:22And, you know, there's the things that we turn away from, the things we don't want to think about, the things that we say are someone else's problems, the things we say we can't do anything about right and those are injustices that we are allowing to be perpetrated we're complicit in that unless we try to do something about you want power you want control you want influence and yet you neglect the most valuable empire there is the greatest empire seneca said is command of oneself your thoughts your opinions your actions your urges command of one's self is the greatest empire. Self-command, self-discipline, self-control, that's real power.

23:00Think of how many powerful people, how many important people, how many people who ruled great armies or nations didn't have that. They were slaves to their desires, to their ambitions, to their need for more and more and more. And if you have control of yourself, then you have more than they will ever have. It's not impressive that you can read difficult books, that you know all this fancy literature, there was a Stoic student who was bragging to Epictetus that he'd read all the works of Chrysippus. And Epictetus looked at him and he said, you know, if Chrysippus was a better writer, you'd have less to be proud about.

23:33Philosophy isn't supposed to be complicated. It's not supposed to be pretentious. It's supposed to be simple and straightforward. And it's supposed to be something that you apply to your life. You care about yourself more than other people. You're self-interested, as all people are by definition. And yet, Mark Schwelis points out, we care about other people's opinions more than our own. We care if they like what we wear, if they like what we say, if they think we're good or bad or whatever. It's insane. Trust your opinion. Develop your own internal compass, your own internal sense of whether you're doing a good job or a bad job, whether you were successful or not.

24:06You can't outsource it to the crowd. Remember, the crowd is the mob. The mob is irrational. You can't let them determine any of it. You're not strong unless you can do something with that strength. You're not smart unless you can do something with that intelligent. Epictetus said if someone was bragging about lifting weights and all the workouts they were doing, you wouldn't say, show me your shoulders. You would say, show me what you can lift. Show me what you can pick up. So ultimately, the learning we do, the work we do, the training we do, it's got to be about the practical application. It's got to be what you're able to do with it.

24:38You're not going to be remembered. You're paying too close of attention. Epictetus says if you want to improve you have to be content to be seen as ignorant or foolish in some matters he was saying that if you're on top of everything if you know the latest gossip all the breaking news what you're doing is not paying attention to the important things what you're not doing is working on yourself you have to be willing to say i don't know about that i didn't hear about that if you're following everything you're really following nothing you're weak if you lose your temper stoicism was a masculine philosophy but marcus really has pointed out how how sort of pathetic etiquette is that we get overwhelmed by our emotions and we lash out at people.

25:16Men sometimes judge other men for crying, but it's strange that we don't judge each other for losing our temper, which actually does hurt people, which is of less purpose. When you feel that sort of rage or anger coming on, the Stoics say, get control of yourself, get command of yourself. Say, is this who I want to be? Is this what being a mature adult is? And the answer is almost certainly no. You are impotent. Your anger is impotent. Marx realized in Meditations, you quote a line from a lost play by the playwright Euripides. And the line says, and why should you feel anger at the world as if the world would notice?

25:49Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. Your anger, your resentment, your grievance, you are shouting into an enormous void. You are yelling at an inanimate object. You are mad at forces that are so enormous, that are utterly amoral, completely indifferent to you and your existence. so you might as well let it go. Part of the reason your life sucks is because your thoughts suck. Marcus really says that our life is dyed by the color of our thoughts. So if we see only negative, if we only see the worst in people, if we only see what's impossible, if we only see how we screwed up, right?

26:24That's gonna color our perception of reality. Your life is dyed by the color of your thought. If your life is negative, if it's full of grievances, well, of course the world is gonna look that way to you. Every day I send out one Stoic inspired email totally for free. Almost a million people all over the world. If you want to take your Stoicism journey to the next level, I would love for you to subscribe. It's totally for free. You can unsubscribe at any time. There's no spam. Just go to dailystoic.com slash email. Love to see you there.

27:35We'll see you next time.

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