This Will Define Your Legacy | Forgive Them Because They Don't Know

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

0:14Ryan Holiday: This will define your legacy. It doesn't seem like a moral question. It seems more like a personal choice, how you spend your money, whether you save or invest or spend or enjoy, how you spend your time, whether you fritter it away or you spend it on pursuits and people most important to you, whether you're Stoic or Epicurean. But discipline, temperance, the Stoics believed was a virtue for a reason. We've been talking about the founding fathers a lot here for the 250th anniversary of America. And you can see as you contrast the founders just how important this virtue is. Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington profited from slavery and both knew it was wrong.

0:55Ryan Holiday: Yet, at the end of their lives, it was Washington who freed his slaves, not Jefferson, even though Jefferson had written far more eloquently about human equality, as well as the eternal shame of slavery. Why is this? Well, it's partly because Washington, far more disciplined and still could afford to manumit his slaves. Early on, he hadn't been able to afford to run Mount Vernon without them, but he was secure enough at the end of his life to do what he obviously should have done, what his conscience knew he should have done years earlier. Jefferson, the Epicurean, was more than $100 ,000 in debt when he died.

1:30Ryan Holiday: He had ransacked Europe for antiques and fineries. He had expanded his estate multiple times, sparing no expense. He left wine and the best foods. And so he couldn't remotely afford redemption. He was scared of leaving nothing to his children. He could not afford to do the right thing. Discipline as a virtue then is related to the other virtues by by controlling our urges, our wants, our lifestyle, we're actually in a better position to be courageous and just. Financial independence, these things free us up in ways that other more irresponsible and conflicted people cannot be. And we see this clearly with the range of Stoic responses in the reign of Nero.

2:11Ryan Holiday: The more austere and disciplined Stoics, Agrippinus and Thrasia, did far better than the high living Seneca. I tell the story in Lives of the Stoics. But a better example was found in John Adams, who, like the other founders, had read all the Stoics. But he lived a far more frugal and laborious life than either the manner-born Jefferson or Washington did. His self-discipline intersected with his ethics. He made an honest living as a lawyer, as a diplomat, and finally as an elected official. He never owned another human being. He never exploited anyone. He didn't crave fancy things or grand houses.

2:45And when he died on the same day as Jefferson, his estate was the exact inverse of his old

2:51Ryan Holiday: friend's$100 ,000 request to his family. In short, discipline makes you better in life and in death.

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5:38Forgive them because they don't know. This is Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 7-6. He says,

6:14and both are ultimately put to death. You can read Tacitus and hear of the death of Jesus, and you can also read Tacitus and hear of the death of Seneca. As he wound his way up the Via Doloroso on the top of Calvary Hill, Jesus, or Christus, as he would have been known to Seneca and other Roman contemporaries, he had suffered immensely. He had been beaten and flogged and stabbed, forced to bear his own cross, and was set to be crucified on it next to two common criminals. There he watched the soldiers roll dice to see who would get to keep his clothes, listened as the people sneered and taunted him.

6:48Whatever your religious inclinations, the words that Jesus spoke next, considering they came as he was subjected to unimaginable human suffering, send chills down your spine. Jesus looked upward and said simply, Father, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This is the same truth that Plato spoke centuries earlier, that Marcus spoke almost two centuries after Jesus. Other Christians must have spoken this truth as they were cruelly executed by the Romans under Marcus's reign. Forgive them, they are deprived of truth. They wouldn't do this if they weren't. Use this knowledge to be gentle and gracious.

7:26I think that's something that Marcus realizes. He goes, hey, not everyone has the privilege and wealth and power that I have, but also they haven't been availed of Stoic philosophy. I mean, let's go to the opening passage in book two of meditations, right? The famous one that's supposedly Marcus writing people off for being annoying and obnoxious and awful, right? What does Marcus say? He lists all the frustrating things they're going to do. And he says, why are they like this? They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. He says, but I've seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own.

8:03Not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind. possessing a share of the divine. So none of them can hurt me. He says, no one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet and hands and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him. These are obstructions. He's saying, forgive them. He's saying, understand them. He even talks about forgiveness in meditations where he says, remember when you have acted like that. And then, of course, there is a whole chapter in part three of Right Thing Right Now, which I hope you have read.

8:42On page 275, I tell a story about forgiveness because it's such an important biblical concept and an important stoic concept and an important virtuous concept. I tell the story of James Lawson, who meets and tries to forgive Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin, James Earl Ray. And he gets asked by Ray to minister to him. He asks him eventually to officiate his wedding. And Lawson is asking his family at dinner if he should do this. And as I write, it says, it was a short conversation. Almost before he could finish, Lawson's 17-year-old son was answering. Well, his son said, not even needing to look up from his food.

9:22If you believe all this stuff you've been preaching all these years, He'll do it. And I say, it's important to note that Jesus didn't just preach forgiveness on that one occasion on the cross. Before his death, he was asked about forgiveness by Peter. Knowing that forgiveness was important, Peter asked just how many times he should forgive his brother. Was it one time for one mistake? Should he forgive him seven times? I do not say to you up to seven times, Jesus replied, but up to 77 times. And in fact, according to some translations, Jesus actually said 70 times seven. But even this understates it because the whole basis of Christianity is that because God has forgiven each person totally and completely, a Christian must in turn do the same.

10:05And then I say, whatever your spirituality, the same bargain stands. Someone kind, someone generous, someone we didn't even know has forgiven us at least once. In fact, life has given you countless second chances, chance after chance after chance. Justice would have cut you off a long time ago. But here you are. We carry that debt now, and so we must forgive others. Better yet, we have the power to enrich ourselves in the world by actively investing this forgiveness wherever possible, wherever we have the opportunity to provide grace to someone who has trespassed against us. I go on. There's another great story of Marcus and forgiveness.

10:38The point is, let's practice a little forgiveness today. Let's give some grace. Not expect it, but give it. That's today's lesson. I hope all of you are well.

10:47Ryan Holiday: Talk soon.

10:53Thank you.