Forgiveness, Can You Imagine? | Take A Walk

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0:56Forgiveness. Can you imagine? He was betrayed. The state was imperiled. Civil war lurked. When Avidius Cassius declared himself emperor in 175 AD, he committed an unpardonable sin. Yet pardoning him is precisely what Marcus Aurelius attempted to do. In fact, he tried to use the coup attempt as a chance to practice reconciliation, to show the Roman people, as he told his soldiers, that there was a right way to deal even with civil wars. Marcus Aurelius wanted to forgive a man who has wronged one, he said, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith.

1:40Can you imagine? It was almost superhuman, and yet it was precisely what he had trained for his whole life. It's what he'd written about in meditations over and over and over again, that when wronged, we should try to think when we have acted that way to someone else, that the best revenge was not to be made awful and evil by your enemies, that something harms you only if it harms your character. Practicing this could not have been easy. Surely Marcus Aurelius was also angry. Surely part of him was relieved when the revolution stalled and when his enemy was struck down by an assassin. Yet we also know that Marcus wept at the tragedy of losing his chance to grant him clemency.

2:24We may never face a coup, but we will be wronged by friends, by colleagues, by life itself. When that happens, we have a choice. Will we be consumed by bitterness or to rise above it? Marcus showed us the way. The question is, will we follow him? And actually, I told a version of the story in the first Obstacle is the Way, which came out over 10 years ago. And I just did this updated edition of the book where I got to sort of take another better stab at that story. That's been the cool part of the success of Obstacles the Way is that it's still, just as Marcus's story is still relevant 2 ,000 years later, that book is still holding up 10 years later, which has been really cool.

3:07You can grab a signed copy of The Obstacles the Way at store.dailystoke.com or just swing by the painted porch sometime. We've usually got them out on the shelf. I'm really proud of that story. It was sort of the natural end of the book, and I was so excited when it came together. And it's just surreal to me to still be talking about it all these years later. Enjoy.

3:33I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school, and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$1.49 a pound if you have prime with organic birds at$2.99 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials. Whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends, everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence.

4:14Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. Take a walk. Seneca believed that we should take frequent wandering walks because constant work will fracture our minds. As a writer, he would have agreed with the novelist Helen Dunmore. A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk. So take some good time this week to take some walks and watch the dullness and feebleness depart. Enjoy the scenery. Enjoy being away from your work. Make them part of your morning and evening writing routine. Return with a stimulated mind that's ready to journal about and follow the philosophy you know.

4:57You think that it's taking a break, but really you end up smarter and clearer than you were when you left. And that's from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by me, Ryan Holiday, which you can pick up signed versions of in the Daily Stoic store. And as Seneca says, we should take wandering walks so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing. That's in his essay on tranquility of mind. But Marcus Aurelius says, pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature and come to your final resting place gracefully just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.

5:42That's Meditations 4.48. And then Seneca again in On Tranquility of Mind. The mind must be given relaxation. It will rise improved and sharper after a good break. Just as rich fields must not be forced, for they will quickly lose their fertility if never given a break, so constant work on the anvil will fracture the force of the mind. But it regains its powers if it is set free and relaxed for a while. Constant work gives rise to a certain kind of dullness and feebleness in the rational soul. There's no problem so bad that taking a walk can't at least help you solve a little bit of it. And I also feel like I've never regretted deciding to get up and take a walk.

6:25My morning routine is built around it. As I've said before, I don't touch my phone in the morning. I go for a walk. It's about a mile and a half to the mailboxes at the end of the road, little PO boxes for everyone there. It's not just good for health. It's not just, you know, getting out and getting sunlight, but it's refreshing. It's time not spent struggling with some work thing. And yet I almost invariably return with something to write down, with something I remembered I need to do during the day, with some sense of purpose and energy for the day. Not only do I do the one in the morning, then I sometimes do walks on phone calls during the day around the Daily Stoic offices and the Painted Porch bookstore here in Bastrop, Texas.

7:10I love walking through these little southern towns. It's always beautiful and shady because they planted the tree so long ago. But then we usually go for a walk after dinner. Sometimes our kids take a popsicle or, you know, my wife and I have a piece of chocolate. during April and May. We like to pick blackberries on the walk, but we just, we walk around. Sometimes we watch the sun come down. You know, we watch the deer run or we look at the cows or pet the donkeys. Sometimes we bring the donkeys carrots, although most of the time our kids eat the carrots before we get there. But the point is this time outside is wonderful and it's philosophical and it's refreshing and it's one of the most important things that I do.

7:52So I hope you will take some walks today. It's one of the best exercises you can do. It's also one of the best forms of exercise for your mind. So take a walk. The Stoics demand it.

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