This Is The Only Thing You Get to Choose | There Is Philosophy In Everything

0:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14After everything that's happened in the last few years, we're tired. After everything that's happened in your life, after everything that's gone wrong the last couple weeks, you think to yourself, I can't handle one more thing going wrong. Certainly Marcus Aurelius would have related to that sentiment. Floods and plagues and wars, a troubled son, personal health issues. Haven't I given enough? We have Marcus Aurelius say in a recent Daily Stoic video, The thing is, life doesn't care, has no time for your questions, pays no mind to your limits. I don't think I'm up for this, the novelist John Gregory Dunn said to his wife as they left the hospital after rushing to check on their daughter, who had just been admitted.

0:56He was down about his career. He wasn't feeling great about his own health. He was sick about his only child. He was worried it would be a long and hard road ahead for them. Joan Didion, his steely, stoic wife, responded with something we can imagine Marcus Aurelius reminding himself of in meditations. You don't get a choice, she says. Fortune behaves as she pleases, the Stoics said. Life disposes. It decides. The only thing we get a choice in is how we respond.

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3:28Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. There is philosophy in everything. This is the March 24th entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. Holding the hardcover here, but maybe you like audiobooks, you want to listen to the audiobook, You can grab the Leatherbound Edition in the Daily Stoics store. You can grab an e-book if you want. But today's quote is from Epictetus' Discourses. We had our streak of many Marx realist entries in a row, and now I think we're on an equally long Epictetus streak. Epictetus says, eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry, have children, get politically active, suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbor, or companions.

4:20Show us these things so that we can see that you truly have learned from the philosophers. That's Epictetus' Discourses 321. Plutarch, a Roman biographer as well as an admirer of the Stoics, although not always he had his disagreements, he didn't begin his study of the greats of Roman literature until late in life. But as he recounts in his biography of Demosthenes, he was surprised at how quickly it all came at him. He wrote, it wasn't so much the words that brought me into a full understanding of events as that, somehow, I had a personal experience of the events that allowed me to follow closely the meaning of the words.

4:57This is what Epictetus means about the study of philosophy. Study, yes, but go live your life as well. It's the only way that you'll actually understand what any of it means. And more importantly, it's only from your actions and choices over time that it will be possible to see whether you took any of the teachings to heart. Be aware of that today when you're going to work, going on a date, deciding whom to vote for, calling your parents in the evening, waving to your neighbor as you walk to your door, tipping the delivery man, saying good night to someone you love. All of that is philosophy. All of it is experience that brings meaning to the words.

5:32You know, there's another quote from Plutarch. He was talking about Socrates and he said, you know, Socrates didn't teach as he sat down at his desk and lectured his students. He taught and how he lived his life, how he served in the army, how he walked through the marketplace, how he talked to his wife, how he talked to his children. He taught his students, he said, as he drank the hemlock and died. Socrates wasn't talking about his philosophy. He was, as Epictetus said, embodying his philosophy. He didn't talk about it. He was about it, right? Don't talk about it. Be about it. But what I like from this, what I think is important that we realize with the Stoics is that the philosophers weren't these kind of abstract, theoretical people.

6:18The Stoics were living their lives. They were engaged in the world. They weren't philosophers writing their works. They were philosophers in how they raised their kids, how they dealt with being tired from a long, dusty day of travel. They were philosophers in disputes, philosophers when they were sick, philosophers visiting their family over the holidays, right? Philosophy was something you applied to life, but not in the big, magnificent, heroic moments, but the regular, the ordinary, the simply human moments. And that this is what really tests us. This is what really challenges us. But this is also the opportunity.

7:07You know, when Mark Smiles says the obstacle is the way, he isn't actually talking about major crises. He's talking about obnoxious people who are getting in our way. There's another great quote, I'm forgetting who said it, something like, anyone can be great in a crisis. It takes power and strength and fortitude to be resilient and philosophical in the ordinary everydayness of life. That's the challenge. That's why I call it the daily stoic, something you apply every day in big situations and little ones alike, ordinary and extraordinary as a family member, as a friend, as a spouse, as a parent, as an academic, as a mechanic, as emperor, as a slave.

7:54That's what stoicism is really about. And I think it's a worthy reminder. I think it's such a wonderful, cool thing to think of that idea from Epictetus making its way to Marcus Aurelius and then him having to put it in practice, how different all their lives were. Anyways, that's my stoic message for today. I'll leave you there and talk to you all very soon.

8:25Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

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