They’re Difficult But They Can Make You Better | Protecting Our Inner Fortress From Fear

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1:04Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

1:45They're difficult, but they can make you better. We all come from different backgrounds. Some of us grew up with two parents while others had just one. Maybe you had a big extended family with lots of relatives, or perhaps you were an only child. Whatever the case, you didn't get to choose the family we were born into. We had no control over whether they were loving, whether they understood us, or whether anyone in our family shared our interests or values. But I was thinking about this recently, about what we can control when it comes to family. When I was giving my talk in Melbourne and part of this tour I'm doing, and by the way, I'll be in Europe and Canada in November.

2:24I'd love to see you and grab tickets at ryanholiday.net. I'm doing some Q &As. And in the part of this Q &A, someone who said they loved their family and friends, but finds it hard to fit in with them because of different beliefs and goals. My answer, and if you listen to the Daily Stoic podcast on Thursdays, you know, I do some Q &As there sometimes from my talks. I wanted to touch on a passage from Epictetus where he talks about precisely this. He says, every event has two handles, one by which it can be carried and one by which it can't. If your brother does you wrong, he says, don't grab it by his wronging because this handle is incapable of lifting it.

3:05Instead, use the other that he is your brother that you were raised together, and then you will have hold of the handle that carries. In the struggle to fit in with family members with different values and beliefs, it's easy to focus on the differences, which naturally leads to feelings of frustration, alienation, even resentment. But as Epictetus reminds us, we can choose to focus on what brings us together, the shared memories, the family ties, the connection that remains even when our paths have diverged. In this way, rather than a source of tension, time with our family becomes a source of training, an opportunity to practice our philosophy.

3:39It was said that Socrates viewed his difficult marriage as a challenge that life presented to him, a test of patience and character, believing that the disagreements or the differing views on life ultimately made him a better person. In book one of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius thanks the gods for blessing him with a stepbrother very different from his own, one that he says who had a character that challenged me to improve my own. And Marcus Aurelius didn't just tolerate Lucius Verus, he found a way to work with him, even naming him co-emperor. Similarly, Confucius came to value his difficult friends and family members as his teachers.

4:19Identifying their strengths, he said, I follow them. And identifying their weaknesses, I reform myself. Just like the great philosophers throughout history, we can find wisdom in our difficult relationships. They bring both obstacles and opportunities challenging us to grow and refine our character. What matters is how we respond to these challenges and who we become in the process. No one ever said that relationships, let alone family, is supposed to be easy. They never have been and they never will be, not even for the wisest among us. But in the end, they are worth the effort. And anyways, if you want to come see me live, it was actually cool.

4:56A bunch of people came with their families. I brought my family out to Sydney and Melbourne, and we're going to come together to the talks in London and Dublin and Rotterdam. I think I'm going to go solo to Toronto and Vancouver. But anyways, I would love to see you all. I'd love to hear your questions. And these are the kinds of things that inspire me because in talking about answering your questions, it gives me things to talk about here in the Daily Stoke email and in the Daily Stoke podcast. So that was really cool. Grab tickets, ryanholiday.net slash tour and tune into the Thursday episodes.

5:27If you don't, I guess that was yesterday. So you can go backwards or wait till next Thursday, but I always run cool Q and A's. I grab them from my talks. I grab them from stuff we do as part of the Daily Stoic challenges. I grab them from all over the place, but I think you'll really like it. So anyways, I hope to see you at the dates and thanks to the lovely person who asked this question for inspiring this email.

5:53Protecting our inner fortress from fear. This is the September 13th entry in the daily Stoic 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. And we have a quote today from Epictetus' Discourses 4.1. Know it is events that give rise to fear. When another has power over them or can prevent them, that person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed? Not by iron or fire, but by judgments. Here is where we must begin. It is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants. The Stoics give us a marvelous concept, the inner citadel. It is this fortress, they believe, that protects the soul.

6:39Though we might be physically vulnerable, though we might be at the mercy of fate, in many ways, our inner domain is impenetrable. As Marcus Aurelius put it, repeatedly, in fact, stuff cannot touch the soul. But history teaches us that impenetrable fortresses can still be breached if betrayed from the inside. The citizens inside the walls, if they fall prey to fear or greed or avarice, can open the gates and let the enemies in. This is what so many of us do when we lose our nerve or give in to fear. You've been granted a strong fortress. Don't betray it. You know, actually, I was thinking as I was grabbing this, I wanted to think of another entry, actually, just a couple days earlier.

7:23This is the September 9th entry in the Daily Stoic. Seneca in Moral Letters says, but there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate. And I tell a story from American history. I say, in the early days of what would become known as the Great Depression, a new president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in and gave his first inaugural address. As the last president to hold office before the 20th Amendment was ratified, FDR wasn't able to take office until March, meaning that the country had been without strong leadership for months. Panic was in the air, banks were failing, and people were scared.

7:59You've probably heard the nothing to fear but fear itself soundbite that FDR gave in that famous speech. But the full line is worth reading because it applies to so many difficult things we face in life. Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. The Stoics knew that fear was to be feared because of the miseries it creates. The things we fear pale in comparison to the damage we do to ourselves and others when we unthinkingly scramble to avoid them. An economic depression is bad.

8:48A panic is worse. A tough situation isn't helped by terror. It only makes things harder. And that's why we must resist and reject it if we wish to turn this situation around. Look, the Stoics know, of course, we're going to be scared sometimes. There's a line I have in Courage is Calling. I'm quoting Faulkner, and I love the distinction. He says, it's okay to feel fear. Just don't be afraid. If we think about there's a difference between that reaction, that initial anxiety, worry, startle, whatever, and then what we allow ourselves to give into what we allow ourselves to be carried away by when we lose control of ourselves.

9:28And that's what FDR was talking about. He wasn't saying, hey, the future is rosy and bright and awesome. He's saying, hey, if you guys make a run on the banks, you know, hey, if you guys turn on each other, if we turn on each other, if we give up believing in each other and in the system and our ability to do something about it, this whole thing's going to fall apart, right? And I think we're in a similar moment now. I mean, people are afraid, people are worried about things on both sides of the spectrum. And ironically, it's fear that's motivating some of the people to do the very extreme and dangerous and actually really scary things that they're talking about doing.

10:10and then creates this wicked feedback loop. And so calming down, zooming out, seeing the big picture, drawing on your courage, your bravery, your confidence, that inner citadel that says, hey, I've been through stuff like this before. We've been through stuff like this before. I don't know what's gonna happen out there. I don't know what these other people are gonna do, but I know what I have to do. I know who I'm supposed to be. I know what's important. I know what my values are, right? I'm gonna calm down. I'm not going to contribute to the panic. I'm not going to make things worse. I'm not going to turn on other people.

10:45I'm going to do what I have to do. That's today's message. Be well, be safe, be brave, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com slash email.

11:30We'll see you next time.

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