How to Be Freer Than a King

0:00We just got back from an amazing vacation in Italy. I'll bring you some clips from it over the next couple weeks. I recorded a bunch of stuff while we were there, although it was as hot as it has literally ever been. It's one of the best family trips we've ever had. And we stayed in this amazing palazzo that we booked on Airbnb. It was like 500 years old. It had all these Roman funerary headstones in it, which is this crazy memento mori thing. It was like staying in a museum. The hosts were incredible. They lovingly restored this place. They took amazing care of it. And by listing their place on Airbnb, they get to share this amazing experience with people from all over the world and get funds to put towards upkeeping and restoring their place.

0:43If you're planning a trip this summer, it's worth considering listing your place on Airbnb. It can be a great way to help offset the cost of your vacation and earn a little extra money to put towards your next adventure. Your place might be worth more than you think. And all you got to do is go to Airbnb.com slash host to find out more. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:14How to be freer than a king. One was a slave. The other was the most powerful man in the world. One lived with almost nothing. The other ruled from a palace in Rome. Yet the Stoic philosopher Epictetus was free while the emperor Nero was trapped. Nero could command armies, order executions, and bend an empire to his will. But he could not govern himself. He was ruled by his appetites, his anger, his vanity, and his fear. Epictetus possessed no throne, no fortune, no political power. For the first 30 years of his life, he did not even possess legal freedom. But through discipline, he learned to govern his judgments, his desires, and his actions.

2:00Epictetus' famous question was, who is your master? Nero should not have had one, but sadly he did. He was a slave to his worst impulses. Meanwhile, the literal slave became master of himself. Men of intemperate minds cannot be free, Edmund Burke observed. Their passions forge their fetters. We often imagine that freedom means having more power, more money, fewer people telling us what to do. But none of that makes us free if we cannot control ourselves. The person who must concede to every craving is not free. The person who explodes whenever they are angry is not free. The person who needs applause, attention, or approval is not free.

2:45You can rule an empire and still live in chains. who can own almost nothing and still be freer than a king. Freedom for the Stoics is mastering yourself and how you respond to fate. As we've said, Epictetus knew this better than anybody. He spent 30 years as a slave, surrounded by corruption and power he couldn't touch. But to be truly free, he said, we have to understand what we can control and what we can't, and that our choices and how we respond. And this month, we are doing a deep dive into Epictetus here at Daily Stoke. We're calling it Epictetus Month. We're reading Epictetus' discourses together.

3:24We've got this digital guide, this course that explains Epictetus' teaching, that guides you through it. And then we're doing an awesome live Q &A here in just a couple of days on August 27th. Right now, if you purchase a copy of Epictetus' discourses from us and The Painted Porch, you'll get the Epictetus digital guide for 30 % off. You can also bundle it with a copy of Meditations 2. Epictetus had another question. How long will you wait to demand the best of yourself? How long are you going to wait until you read Epictetus? Let's do it together this month. Sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash epictetus course.

4:00And of course, if you sign up for Daily Stoic Life, you get this course and all the courses we do here at Daily Stoic included in that. That's dailystoiclife.com.

4:14You