This Is Inseparable From Living a Good Life

0:00When we opened the bookstore, we have Tracy's down the street. One of the things that happens when you have a business is like you get all these people that are trying to sell you these different products and services. Oh, this is the right platform. This is the right tool. This is what you should use. Most of it's not good. Most of it's a scam. Most of it doesn't help. But the most important choice we made with the Painted Porch, other than physically where we were, was using Shopify. We have used Shopify for over a decade, first with Daily Stoic, now with the Painted Porch. It's a choice we've never regretted.

0:33It's a major part of the business and we wouldn't have succeeded without it. They've grown with us over the years. We've grown with them for almost 10 years now. It's great. And we're not the only ones using it. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and brands all over the world. They do 10 % of the e-commerce in the U.S., from household names to Gymshark and Allbirds to little brands just getting started and little things in between like Daily Stoic. Everything is all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. And if you get stuck, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer service, which we have used many times at Daily Stoic and with The Painted Porch.

1:18It's time to turn those what-ifs in to sales with Shopify today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash stoic. Go to shopify.com slash stoic, shopify.com slash stoic. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:52This is inseparable from living a good life. Courage is an obvious choice for being the most important of the four stoic virtues. In fact, it was Aristotle who said that courage was the mother of all the rest. In a world that is scary, in a world that is hard, it is a brave thing to go out there and do what needs to be done. Self-discipline or temperance is another obvious choice for the most important virtue because, well, you can't do anything without it. And as Aristotle pointed out, courage that isn't checked by temperance can quite easily veer into recklessness. Justice, Marx really said, is the source of all the other virtues.

2:32And the Stokes were quite clear that the point of philosophy, the point of life, is to direct a person towards doing what's right. Courage in service of injustice, discipline aimed at selfish ends, that's not what Marcus or Epictetus Sir Zeno would have called the good life. And then, of course, making the distinctions between these virtues, making sense of what the ancients said about them requires no small amount of wisdom. And it's this critical, but I think too rare ability, discernment is not something anyone is born with, and yet all the other virtues are born from it. And doesn't the development of this ability of wisdom require courage and discipline and justice?

3:13Of course it does. The fact that you can argue for any of these four as the most important virtue. So I did, you know, each time I announced the books in the virtue series, I said, courage is the most important. When I was writing courage is calling. And when I wrote discipline is destiny, I said, discipline is the most important. When I wrote right thing right now, I said, justice is the most important. And of course, when I wrote wisdom takes work, I said, this is the most important. But I think that's a testament to the interrelatedness of these virtues, to their importance in living a good life.

3:42As Zeno said, the four virtues are inseparable, but distinct and different from one another. It's hard to know, though, where one ends and another begins, which is sort of the whole point. They're not supposed to be pursued in isolation. Instead, they come together under the idea of virtue itself. Each are pieces of a larger goal. I started this series of books way back in 2019, and now more than seven years later, the first time all four books are available in the Stoic Virtue series box set, which Penguin Random House is putting out. It's coming out on May 19th. We've got some copies for pre-order here at The Painted Porch.

4:22I'll sign them if you like. Each one of the books, right? Courage is calling discipline is destiny, right thing right now, and wisdom takes work. Each one is a prescription for a specific virtue. And if you've read one of them or none of them, this might be a great thing, or it's a great grad gift or Father's Day gift or I don't know. All I'm telling you is that the Four Virtues box set is out. Chapter of my life is done. The whole series is done. It's in one place and check it out in the show notes. Thanks, everyone.