It’s Impossible, You Know

0:00The world is full of tours. But you don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places in between. The detours, where each adventure pulls you toward the next. And wrong turns turn out right. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota Trucks. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going.

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1:59Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

2:26It's impossible, you know. You know this, right? That it's impossible to get everyone to like you. That it's never going to happen. Everyone appreciating or understanding or enjoying what you do. On the contrary, lots of people are going to dislike you. The more popular you get, the more people who do like you, the more people will discredit, disavow, and disapprove of you. That's just a fact. Think of Marcus Aurelius. He ruled over an empire of 50 million people. Even if he was widely beloved, even if he was somehow the most popular sovereign who ever lived, millions of people would have hated him.

3:03And how many people today pick up a brilliant work like Meditations and then throw it down, saying, not for me? Seneca was widely known and a celebrated playwright in his time, to say nothing of the reception of his philosophical works. yet plenty of people thought he was the worst. Indeed, one of the sources we have on Seneca's wealth and his supposed hypocrisy comes from a guy whose dislike for Seneca could be said to border on full-throated hating. And certainly he wasn't the only Seneca before, at the time, or since. Daily Stoke is pretty popular. We have almost a million people who get this email every morning and millions more follow us on Instagram and YouTube and TikTok.

3:42And you know what is simultaneously true though? Lots of people hate daily Stoic. They think that it's too this or that, not enough this or that. They were fans and think it fell off. They think it's too commercial. They think it's too broad. They think it's not as good as the actual writings of the Stoics. And you know what? They're right. It is those things to them. Their opinions are correct to them. Part of serenity, but also success in living is knowing what feedback to listen to and what to ignore. It's focusing on what you control, your work, the intention you bring to it, etc., and letting go of what isn't in your control, how other people interpret it, how well or not well it does.

4:20Being loved or understood by or appreciated by everyone is not something that's in your control. In our episode with Tim Ferriss on this podcast, we touched on this, it can be almost overwhelming to consider how many people don't like you out there. You have to be able to tune most of this out. You have to be able to filter the constructive from the cruel, the stuff that gets you closer to where you're trying to go personally, professionally, ethically, and the stuff that has more to do with someone else's view of those things. You have to accept that nobody ever on earth, including Marcus Aurelius or Cato or Gandhi, was well-liked by everyone.

4:52Detractors and haters are part of life. And they may well be a sign that you're doing something right. And so whether you love Daily Stoic or you hate Daily Stoic, I'll just say thank you for listening. I appreciate it.

5:09Thank you.