It’s How It Makes You Heal | Pain Is Self-Inflicted Harm

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1:04Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of Stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

1:43It's how it makes you heal. It wasn't fun that it went sideways. It hurt that they hurt you. It took something that you can never get back. Would Marcus Aurelius have preferred his reign to go swimmingly? Of course. Did he want to be betrayed in a coup? Did these things and countless other tragedies nearly break him? In fact, it did break him, as it would nearly any person. Hemingway wrote about how when these things happen to us, we can become stronger in the broken places. Taylor Swift sings in a song thanking someone who bullied her that, I can't forget the way you made me heal. If we can choose to learn from what happened, if we can choose to grow from what happened, if we can choose not to be made bitter and awful, choose not to be like our enemies, as Marcus wrote, then maybe someday we can be grateful for this experience.

2:33Someday we can understand that we wouldn't have any of this without all of that. We can understand that they gave us something when they took from us, that they healed us when they hurt us. That's life. That's resiliency. And that's how the obstacle is the way. And I've been telling you, I've been working on this 10 year anniversary edition of The Obstacle's Way. Well, it's got stories in it like that. I love that story about Hemingway when I heard it. And I still, even after I finish my books, I keep researching for them. And I've been hanging on to that story and been so excited to put it in the book.

3:11And it's there alongside that famous Reuben Hurricane Carter story. There's also a story about Julia Baird, who gets this terrible cancer diagnosis, and she goes through a heartbreak and what she finds within herself. It's also Stockdale, who I've been writing about recently. It's what he draws on. The idea is it's not what happens to you. It's about who you become after, how you grow from it. And if you want one of these signed numbered first editions of The Obstacle's Way, I've been joking, it's my Ryan's version of it as a nod, like Taylor Swift's version. Obviously, both versions of the book are mine, but this is my newest, I think, best version of it.

3:51You can pre-order your copy. It's coming out on October 1st. You can grab it only from the Daily Stoic store. That's dailystoic.com slash obstacle. And if you want a signed page from the manuscript, like we did with some previous books, we've got those also. I think you got to buy two copies or three copies. I don't know, go to dailystoic.com slash obstacle to check it out.

4:20Panic is self-inflicted harm. This is from today's entry in the Daily Stoic journal, where we riff on, we have a weekly meditation and then daily journaling. But let's think about it, right? Name one situation that is improved by panicking. Go ahead. Like seriously, can you think of something where panicking makes it better? Seneca mused often about the problem of panic, both in his letters and his essays. The problem with panic is that it creates danger and it limits our ability to function effectively. It prevents us from finding success and seeing objectively. and worse, it makes us weaker over time because we've never truly faced the danger that we're worried about.

4:57We're always running away and then we're weaker as a result. So spend some time today meditating on scary things that might make you panic. Think about them in advance. Think about what's so overwhelming about them. Come to understand them. Get familiar with them. One of the chapters I have in Courage is Calling is I talk about this dictum that Napoleon had for his generals. He said, ask yourself three times a day, what would I do if the enemy appeared on my left or my right or the center? Obviously, the idea here wasn't to create anxiety. It was precisely to prevent panic. By thinking about what scares us in advance, by familiarizing ourself with it, Napoleon was saying, we can respond to it.

5:37We can have a plan. A general who has a plan, who has an understanding, who has contingencies, who has backup plans and backup plans for the backup plans and they understand that no plan survives contact with the enemy. That's the general who can endure things. That's the general who's less afraid. Fear makes us worse. Familiarity makes us less afraid. And that's what I talk about in Courage is Calling. But we have three quick quotes from Seneca today. For even peace itself will supply more reason for worry. Not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked, once it gets in the habit of blind panic.

6:11It can't provide for its own safety, for it doesn't really avoid danger, it just runs away. Yet we are exposed to greater danger with our backs turned. There's another great quote I have in the book from Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut. He says, remember, it's always possible to make a problem worse. Panic does that. Worry does that. Fear does that. It makes us worse. As Seneca says, we're actually more in danger as we're running away than when we face our problems. Then he says, success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life.

6:47And then he says, the unprepared are panic-stricken by the smallest things. Another quote I have from Seneca in Courage is calling that I really love. He says, the only inexcusable thing for an officer to say is, I did not think that could happen. So you can't panic just because it's a surprise, just because it came out of nowhere, just because it's a black swan. In fact, your whole job is to be prepared for exactly this. Your whole job is how do you perform under pressure? How do you perform when the enemy is up close? How do you perform when other people are running away, when other people are scared?

7:20This is why courage is so important. We have to see panic and fear as something that makes us worse. It's a competitive disadvantage. It's not that we never have fear. It's that we have the fear. We are alert to what it's trying to tell us. and we try to get to work breaking it down. We try to get to work preparing for it. We try to get to work anticipating it. We try to get to work putting ourselves in a position where if it does happen, and it probably will happen, we'll be able to respond. We'll know what we can do. As Napoleon was saying, what would you do if they were on your left? What would you do in your front?

7:55What would you do if they were over here? What would you do if all of these things happened at the same time? That's what confidence and courage gives you. And I hope you spend some time journaling about panic and fear this week. I hope it makes you better, stronger, and braver. If you want to come see me talk, if you want to see me get over some of my own stage fright, and you want to ask questions and hang out a bit, I would love to see you. I'm doing events in London, Rotterdam, and Dublin in early November. And then after that, Vancouver and Toronto. This is all basically the 12th through the 20th.

8:25So it's going to be a busy November for me. So grab tickets, ryanholiday.net slash tour. Both the events in Australia sold out. So these will sell out also. So grab your tickets. I'll see you all soon.

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