BONUS | 3 Life-Changing Lessons From Seneca in 3 Minutes

0:00Ryan Holiday: We were in Rome this summer and my family and I stayed in this amazing palazzo that we booked on Airbnb. It had these frescoes that were twice as old as America. Just one of the most beautiful places I've ever stayed in in my life. And in fact, I found out later that the people that owned it were listing their place on Airbnb. They were the third family to ever own it. I just thought it was so cool. By listing it on Airbnb, they were not only able to pay to restore and take care of this incredible piece of history, but they were also able to share it with the world. So if you're planning on being away, if you have a property or an extra bedroom or maybe a vacation home, you should consider listing it on Airbnb.

0:47Ryan Holiday: It can be a great way to earn some extra cash while you travel, and that can help offset the cost of your trip, or it can go towards whatever comes next. Your home might be worth more than you think, and you can find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:21Three life-changing ideas from Seneca that you need to know about. Number one is this idea of premeditatio malorma, premeditation of evils. Seneca says that we should think about the bad things that could happen. He says, if you're going on a journey by ship, traveling across the ocean here behind me, he says, you should be aware of the potential for shipwrecks, the potential for pirates, the potential for bad weather, the potential for a bad captain, the potential for delays. He says, the unexpected blow lands heaviest. He says, all the terms of this human lot should be before our eyes. And if we think about Seneca's life, he's talking from experience here.

1:59He suffers a crippling illness. He has to spend 10 years convalescent. He suffers in exile. He lives through the deranged reign of Nero, right? He goes through some stuff. And he's saying that by anticipating what could happen, we take away some of its power over us. And two, this one balances out the first one. He says, though, that we shouldn't let our imagination torture us. He says he who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. When a general is thinking about where the enemy might advance, they're not nervous and anxious. They're prepared. They're active. They're toughening themselves up.

2:37They're doing their job. He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. And the third is one actually that a lot of people torture themselves in advance about. And Seneca says this is wrong. He says you shouldn't think of death as something way off in the future that you're dreading as you move towards. He says this is the wrong way to think about death. Death isn't something in the future. He says death is happening right now. He says the time that passes belongs to death. We're not dying once in the future. We're dying every minute. We're dying every day. So you want to ask yourself, am I living this life that I have?

3:16Am I getting a return on the time that I am spending? Am I guarding my most precious resource carefully enough?

3:29Thank you.