What’s On a Hill Cannot Be Hidden | Stop Monkeying Around

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: What's on a hill cannot be hid. It's been one for hundreds of years, a place that people aspire to, dream of, look up to. They want to move there. They want to be a part of it. They want what it offers, they like what it stands for. America. The city on a hill. That's what John Winthrop first called it in the year 1630. And so for even longer than the 250th anniversary that the United States is celebrating this month, America has been that. And yet for almost as long, people have totally missed an important part of what that idea, which comes from the Bible, is all about. The full line, which comes from the Sermon on the Mount, is about how a city on a hill cannot be hidden.

0:58Ryan Holiday: Yes, it's a beacon. It is also public. It does not have the cover of darkness, even at night. Both its virtues and its flaws are laid bare for all to see. In meditations, Mark Surrealis expresses a similar idea about not doing anything that needs to be concealed behind walls or curtains. if you have to hide it, if you need secrecy to protect it, if it depends on no one seeing what you're doing, then maybe it's a sign that you should not be doing it at all. In Right Thing Right Now, I tell the story of a Roman politician who, when offered means of making his house more private, doubled the architect's fee to remove any obstructions so that people could see he had nothing to hide.

1:42Ryan Holiday: Whether America is truly a city on a hill or not is up for you to decide, but Each of us should try to conduct our lives as if we were being looked at and looked up to. Because we are. By our families, by our friends, by people less fortunate than us. By people who don't like us. We should let our light shine and yet also let sunshine keep us honest. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Understand that we don't get to make excuses or exceptions. We are privileged and empowered. Let's act that way.

2:20Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan. I'm on the road right now doing talks all over the country. I love traveling. I love going to new places. The thing I don't like about it though, is I don't get to sleep in my bed at home, which I like not just because it's home, but because I have an eight sleep on my bed. I've had an eight sleep on my bed, I don't know, five years. I love it. My wife loves it. We love it because it cools the mattress. It heats the mattress. You can have different sides It's cool at different temperatures. It's even how I wake up in the morning. Instead of an annoying alarm clock or that, you know, horrible sound on your phone, it lightly buzzes you awake.

2:53Ryan Holiday: And then when you're up, you want to turn it off, you just tap the mattress. There's all sorts of awesome features in my Eight Sleep. It was worth every penny. The point is, I love my Eight Sleep and the Eight Sleep keeps getting better. Eight Sleep users report up to 32 % better sleep and up to 34 % better deep sleep. This is all stuff you love. You can use the code DailyStoic at 8sleep.com slash DailyStoic right now for up to$500 off. And this 4th of July sale ends on July 12th, so don't wait. And if you have an HSA or an FSA, some 8sleep stuff qualifies for that as well. Through TrueMed and qualified customers save about 30 % on average.

3:35Ryan Holiday: Check your eligibility at trumed.com slash 8sleep before you buy. True Med is for qualified customers. HSA and FSA tax savings may vary. This year is going to be the 10-year anniversary, not just of the Daily Stoic book, but dailystoic.com. The email, the podcast, all that stuff. And I don't think we would be standing here 10 years later if it weren't for Shopify. Shopify has been the back end of so many things we've done, from the New Year New You challenges to the medallions to posters. Even right now, if you're going to buy a signed book from me, you're going to be checking out through Shopify at dailystoic.com, or if you're buying something from Daily Dad there, or if you come to the Painted Porch, we even use Shopify at point of sale in the store.

4:18Ryan Holiday: And if you've been sitting on a business idea, Shopify makes it easy to make that happen. You've got everything you need to start selling and Shopify handles the setup and the checkout and you can focus on growing the business and they've got all the tools to help you with what you need, which is why Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to small businesses just getting started like Daily Stoic was not that long ago. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash stoic.

4:48Ryan Holiday: That's shopify.com slash stoic to start your free trial.

4:55Stop monkeying around. Enough of this miserable whining life. Stop monkeying around. Why are you troubled? What's new here? What's so confounding? The one responsible, take a look. Or just the matter itself, then look at that. There's nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go by now, you could be trying to be more straightforward and kind. It's the same whether you've examined these things for a hundred years or only three. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 9, 37. Expertly translated by the one and only Steve Hanselman, a meditation coming from me. This is 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living.

5:37The Daily Stoke, you can get anywhere books are sold. You can also get a leather-bound edition in the Daily Stoke store. Character, Joan Didion would write in one of her best essays, is the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life, and it is the source from which self-respect springs. Marcus Aurelius urged us not to waste time complaining about what we haven't got or how things have worked out. We have to quit monkeying around and be owners of our own lives. Character can be developed and when it is, self-respect will ensue. That means starting and getting serious about it. Not later, not after certain questions have been answered or distractions have been dealt with, but now, right now, taking responsibility is the first step.

6:20To be without this respect is the worst of all fates. As Didion put it in her essay on self-respect, to live without self-respect is to lie awake some night beyond the reach of warm milk, the phenobarbital in the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trust betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. We are all so much better than that. I love in meditations, you hear Marcus, you know, saying stuff like this to himself. Stop monkeying around. How much longer are you going to wait? He says, you're an old man now and you're still struggling with this.

6:59I love the vulnerability there. Like he's not telling you to stop monkeying around. He's telling himself to stop monkeying around. And by extension, also you. But the point is, this is directed at himself because we all struggle with it. We all get distracted. We all get, you know, complaining and whiny and obnoxious and entitled. But we have to stop. But to stop monkeying around, we have to get serious. We have to take responsibility for our own lives, for our own actions. Yes, things happen in the world. Yes, things are unfair. Yes, things suck. Yes, there are injustices that need to be addressed at large, but you are responsible for your own habits.

7:36You're responsible for what time you woke up this morning. You're responsible for the standard you hold yourself to. You are responsible for what you say, what you do, right? We are responsible for ourselves and our own emotions. You can't make me angry. As my wife says to me sometimes, you can't make me frustrated. We are responsible for ourselves. And when we do things where we have abstained from this responsibility, I take no responsibility at all, Trump famously said. This is the most shameless, shameful thing that a person can do. But this is an important Stoic concept, right? The Stoics say, hey, don't take responsibility.

8:18I sometimes contrast Stoicism and Christianity. It's not that they're saying, take responsibility, God says so, or if you don't take responsibility, you're going to end up in hell. The Stoics are saying, and I think this is what Didion captures so well, is that to not take responsibility over the course of a life ultimately is a form of hell. It is a miserable way to live, as she said. It's to be beyond the reach of comforts, the drugs, the sleep, relief. It is a miserable way to live. So take responsibility for your life. Stop blaming others. Own what is in your control. Deal with it. Take it seriously.

8:58Do your best. Do good, as we were talking about last week. And you might not always succeed. You might not be rewarded for it. You may well be punished for it. You may not get what you want. But you can look yourself in the mirror. You can know you did your best. You can know you're trying. And you can know that on a long enough timeline, you will be vindicated and it will work out. Be good, everyone. Take responsibility.

9:23Ryan Holiday: Talk to you next time. Hey there, just a heads up. I'm going to be on tour this fall. You can see me in Australia and New Zealand in October, in August. I'm mixing my months up here. But in August, you can see me in Chicago and Minneapolis and Detroit. Then I'll be on the East Coast sometime in November and December. Anyways, grab tickets to that, dailystoiclive.com. Hope to see you there.