When It’s Not How You Imagined | Seeking Out Shipwrecks

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: When it's not how you imagined. It wasn't supposed to go this way. This wasn't what you planned. This isn't fair. It happens. The question for the Stoics was, how are you going to react? How are you going to handle disappointment, surprise, or injustice? I've been known to throw a tantrum, Phoebe Bridgers sings on her new album, when things are not the way I imagine them. It's actually a great line. Let me just play it real fast. I've been known to throw a tantrum when things are not the way I imagine them. That's what most of us do. Like children, we confuse our hopes and expectations with entitlements.

1:00Ryan Holiday: We think that yelling or whining, resenting or wishing will make something otherwise. We think that we can undo what happened, that we can start it over or run it again. But that's not how it works or how it ever will. We must remember that fortune behaves however she pleases, as Seneca put it. We have to be flexible and adaptable. And we must learn what Epictetus called the art of acquiescence. No tantrums, no fighting, just getting to work.

1:38Ryan Holiday: We just got back from an amazing vacation in Italy. I'll bring you some clips from it over the next couple weeks. I recorded a bunch of stuff while we were there. Although it was as hot as it has literally ever been. It's one of the best family trips we've ever had. And we stayed in this amazing palazzo that we booked on Airbnb. It was like 500 years old. It had all these Roman funerary headstones in it, which is this crazy Memento Mori thing. It was like staying in a museum. The hosts were incredible. They lovingly restored this place. They took amazing care of it. And by listing their place on Airbnb, they get to share this amazing experience with people from all over the world and get funds to put towards upkeeping and restoring their place.

2:21Ryan Holiday: If you're planning a trip this summer, it's worth considering listing your place on Airbnb. It can be a great way to help offset the cost of your vacation and earn a little extra money to put towards your next adventure. Your place might be worth more than you think. And all you got to do is go to airbnb.com slash host to find out more. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard of today's sponsor. You've almost certainly heard me talk about going to therapy. and you've probably heard about it on this podcast because I've been going to therapy longer than I've been doing Daily Stoic and BetterHelp has been a sponsor of the Daily Stoic podcast basically since we started.

2:59Ryan Holiday: More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally and you can check out the reviews for yourself at betterhelp.com slash reviews to see how amazing their customer reviews are. People are getting better with BetterHelp. BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5 on over 1.7 million client session reviews. This is feedback from people who have actually used the service. And if you're ready to give therapy a try for yourself, BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. You ask a couple questions, they match you with a therapist based on your needs, and you can switch at any time if it's not the right fit.

3:39Ryan Holiday: Just visit betterhelp.com slash dailystoicpod, betterhelp.com slash dailystoicpod.

3:50Ryan Holiday: Seeking out shipwrecks. I was shipwrecked before I even boarded. The journey showed me this, how much of what we have is unnecessary and how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it's necessary, never suffering the loss. That's from Seneca's Moral Letters 87. This is an entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. From yours truly, Ryan Holiday, with my co-author and translator, Steve Hanselman. You can get the book anywhere books are sold, including signed copies in the Daily Stoic store and our limited edition, a leather-bound edition as well.

4:32Ryan Holiday: Zeno, widely considered to be the founder of the school of Stoicism, was a merchant before he was a philosopher. On a voyage between islands in the Mediterranean, his ship sank along with its cargo. Zeno ended up in Athens, and while visiting a bookstore, he was introduced to the philosophy of Socrates, and later an Athenian philosopher named Crates. These influences drastically changed the course of his life, leading him to develop the thinking and principles that we now know as Stoicism. And according to the ancient biographer Diogenes, Zeno joked, now that I've suffered a shipwreck, I'm on a good journey.

5:09Ryan Holiday: Or according to another account, you've done well, fortune, driving me thus to philosophy. The Stoics weren't being hypocritical when they said we ought to act with a reverse clause or that even the most unfortunate events can turn out to be for the best. In fact, the entire philosophy is founded on that idea. You know, I tell this story at greater length in Lives of the Stoics, so I'll read you a chunk of that as well, just because it's one of my favorite stories in all of Stoicism, and I think it's just so fitting. I write, The story of Stoicism begins fittingly in misfortune. On a fateful day late in the 4th century BC, the Phoenician merchant Zeno sent sail on the Mediterranean in with cargo full of Tyrian purple dye.

5:55Ryan Holiday: Zeno's family's trade was in one of the most valuable goods in the ancient world. And as for many entrepreneurs, their business was on the line every day. No one knows what caused the wreck. Was it a storm, pirates, human air? Does it matter? Zeno lost everything, ship and cargo, in a time before insurance and venture capital. It was an irreplaceable fortune. And yet the unlucky merchant would later rejoice in his loss, claiming, I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered a shipwreck, for it was the shipwreck that sent Zeno to Athens and on the path to creating what would become stoic philosophy.

6:30Another fun wrinkle about this that I love is that, you know, he ends up in a bookstore.

6:36Ryan Holiday: The bookseller is reading the works of Socrates, and this is what sends Zeno down his path. So I think there's a couple of things here. Zeno's quote is actually a little bit more about the idea of premeditacea malorum about preparing for adversity maybe xeno was prepared maybe he wasn't again that his whole business was on the line that he lost everything in this shipwreck maybe suggests that perhaps he wasn't but the idea that the worst possible thing the thing you dread the thing you could not have imagined the the thing you think is the worst stroke of bad luck turns out to be the pivot point of his entire life xeno think about how many Tyrian dye merchants there would have been in the ancient world.

7:18Ryan Holiday: How many of their ships were coming into Athens week in and week out. And think of how few of them we've even heard of. I mean, have you even heard of Tyrian purple? No. You haven't even heard of the country that Zeno's from, right? And so the irony is that the thing that he probably resented and was angry about and feared All of this turns out to be the only reason that we're even talking about them right now. And I think this is a good lesson that, you know, holds true in your own life, right? If you think about the worst things that have happened to you, the things that you dreaded, the things that you wanted, as time has passed, you've seen how they've contributed to who you've become.

8:01Ryan Holiday: That's not to say you would have chosen them. That's not to say that they weren't painful. And that's not to say that there wasn't more, in some cases, more downside than upside. but there was upside. And in that, we can make true what Zeno said, that we made a great fortune by suffering a shipwreck that perhaps from heartbreak came the love of your life or from a financial calamity came from some great injury, came a wonderful recovery, came a new way of doing things. From the heart attack came an awakening about your health. The worst thing that happened you can become something good. This is what the idea of the obstacle is the way is really about.

8:41Ryan Holiday: And I just love so much that it's literally written into the story of stoicism, that it is there at the beginning. It is there before the beginning. In fact, it's there causing the beginning. And I think that can be true for all of us as well. So I'm not saying I hope your ship wrecks today. I'm just saying if your ship does wreck, let's turn it into a Xeno-like rising from the ashes. Thank you.