We Have To Do This For Each Other | Reboot The Real Work

0:00I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

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1:19Welcome 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.

1:59We have to do this for each other. In ancient Rome, as in our modern world, crises were a constant. Wars erupted, earthquakes struck, pandemics spread. Fortune, Seneca said, behaves capriciously. It has always been thus. And it is from Seneca that we hear of a devastating fire that raised the city of Leon, just as the great fire of Rome had burned through the capital just a year earlier. They had sent aid to Rome, he noted, and now Rome was returning the favor. This is how it goes. One day a disaster strikes someone else, the next day it could strike us. In fact, in another bit of writing, Seneca notes that this was actually what we should remind ourselves when we see doctors or undertakers carrying away one of our sick neighbors.

2:49We could be next. Of course, the lesson here is more than just be aware. It is also make sure you are generously offering the kind of help you may one day need and hope to receive. Since we started Daily Stoic back in 2016, we've been telling this story about these two cities. We told it after Hurricane Harvey. We told it during the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down the world. We told it just a few months ago after Hurricane Helene. Together, we've helped thousands of people all over the world recover from natural disasters and unimaginable catastrophes. And as you know, one of the worst fires in American history has ripped through Los Angeles.

3:31It's not idle speculation that many people who read this email alongside you each morning have lost their homes. And I mean that seriously. At least two different guests on the Daily Stoic podcast came back to their homes to find they'd been burned to the ground with everything they owned inside them. And this destruction isn't just physical. These wildfires have left people grappling with the loss of cherished memories, the disruption of their lives and careers, and the daunting task of starting over. Some of the hardest hit areas include L.A.'s most affluent neighborhoods, whose residents many assume can afford to weather any storm.

4:08But this is flawed logic, insinuating that some deserve to lose their home more than others. More importantly, these neighborhoods also supported the livelihood of countless others, housekeepers and landskeepers, child care providers, maintenance workers, local businesses, all of whom now face uncertainty as their communities have been reduced to ash. And this is what Seneca meant about the capriciousness of fortune. Today's disaster is theirs, but tomorrow it could just as easily be ours. And while we can't stop the fires or undo the damage, we can do what the Stoics taught us, offer the kind of help we hope to receive should we ever need it.

4:47Just like the Romans who came to the aid of a neighboring city after its devastating fire, now it is our turn to act with generosity and compassion. Let us meet this moment not with judgment or indifference, but with the same solidarity we deserve. And, you know, I was thinking about this. I was working on this email as I went for a run yesterday in Houston, and I I ran over this sort of bayou little stream and I was thinking, yeah, not that long ago, this whole thing was flooding huge chunks of this city. And that this happens over and over and over again, and it's only going to keep happening.

5:24And so our sort of go-to here, like in my household and with Daily Stoic, is to think about food banks, to help people who are so affected by these crises that they're unsure of how they're going to be able to feed their family. We did a big food drive with Feeding America during Cyber Monday and Black Friday. And the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank is one organization working to provide essential food and nutrition assistance to those impacted by the wildfires and beyond. You can donate now at lafoodbank.org. Or you can just Google around and find any charity supporting people in the area. So that's today's message.

6:08I hope you can help. I'm going now myself to make a donation to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and I hope you do the same.

6:18Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove in Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

7:03We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you.

7:42Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Today, we are reading from The Daily Stoic. I am not literally holding it in my hands because I am in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, where I will be for the next few minutes before I run downstairs and catch a car, go to the airport, and then I'll be in San Diego. So I have my producer send me today's entry. This is January 17th, Reboot the Real Work. And our quote today comes from Epictetus' Discourses. I am your teacher and you are learning in my school, he says.

8:32My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unstrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God and things great to small. Your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things. Why then don't you complete this work? If you have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation, what is missing? The work is quite feasible and is the only thing in our power, the go of the past. We must only begin. Believe in me, and you will see. Do you remember school or early in your life being afraid to try something because you feared you might fail at it?

9:13Most teenagers try to fool around rather than exert themselves. Half-hearty and lazy effort gives them a ready-made excuse. It doesn't matter. I wasn't even trying. As we get older, failure is not so inconsequential anymore. What's at stake is not some arbitrary grade or an intramural sports trophy, but the quality of your life, your ability to deal with the world around you. Don't let that intimidate you, though. You have the best teachers in the world, the wisest philosophers who ever lived. And not only are you capable, the professor is asking for something very simple. Just begin the work.

9:49The rest follows. You know, I'm thinking a couple things here. So one, just so you note, Epictetus's discourses come to us from the lecture notes of one of his students, a man named Arian. Mark Cirelius reads a copy of these notes given to him by his philosophy teacher, Rusticus, who probably studied under Epictetus as well. So Epictetus doesn't write a book. We get these sort of excerpts of either questions he was asking or lectures he was giving his many students. It's just an interesting insight into who Epictetus was and how he was talking. But, you know, I was thinking about this entry, which I would have written back in 2015, and I realized it was largely inspired by something that Robert Greene writes about in, I think, The 40 Laws of Power, but maybe The 33 Strategies of War.

10:48I wrote this down many years ago. It's one of my favorite passages he ever wrote. And I was like, where's that quote? Because I don't have the book on me. I was like, where can I grab it? Then everybody's like, oh yeah, I read that quote out when I gave my first talk at the Naval Academy as part of this lecture I've been doing on the Four Virtues series. So I pulled this up. This is a talk I gave back in April 22 as part of my lecture on the Four Virtues series. Anyways, this is a quote from Robert Green, which I think is worth sharing today. He says, teenagers will often strike a pose that is simultaneously rebellious and lackadaisical.

11:20It is a way of staying in place. Trying harder brings more risk of failure, which they cannot handle. So they lower their expectations, finding nobility and slacking off in mediocrity. Losing hurts less when you embrace it. And I tied that to this famous story about Jimmy Carter when he was being interviewed by Admiral Rickover, both graduates from the Naval Academy, where he asks Carter how he did at the Naval Academy, and Carter tells him his class rank. And Rickover says, yeah, but did you always do your best? And Carter has to answer honestly that he didn't always do your best. And I was sort of talking to them about how there have been times in my life, especially when I was their age, that I did precisely this.

12:03I was afraid to try, afraid to put myself out there, afraid to really do my best. Because if you do your best, you really go for it, you earnestly put yourself out there, then if it doesn't work, you have to own that failure. It says something about you, not as a person, but it certainly says something about your abilities, right? Or your abilities in that moment. And so I think we do this in a lot of ways. We know we could practice these ideas better. We know there's more we could do. So why don't we? Why do we hold ourselves back? Anyways, that's kind of the lesson there. But again, I find it so fascinating.

12:37Epictetus wasn't just this philosopher. He was a teacher, a great teacher that you might have had, one that called you forward, called out the best in yourself, that challenged you in a way that I wish some of my teachers had. I certainly think of Ms. Carrs and Mr. Del Ordo, two teachers who did get the best out of me, whose influence shapes me even to this day, and how I wish I'd had more teachers like that. I wish I'd had a Rickover in my life. I wish I'd had an Epictetus in my life. But ultimately, that's who is in my life, right, is the Stoics. And that's why we are lucky. And that's what the entry concludes with, right?

13:13We have the best teachers in the world, the wisest philosophers who ever lived. We have meditations. We have discourses. We have Seneca's essays. We have his letters. We have their example also. We must begin. We must believe in them. And then we will see. All right, I'm going to go catch my flight. You guys have a great day. That's today's message.

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