You Can Choose Right Now | The Portable Retreat

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: You can choose right now. You could do it when things get warmer. You could do it when winter is officially over. You could do it when things calm down at work. You could do it after things get settled. You could wait for permission. for an excuse, for help. Or you could do it now. You could stop putting off what you've been procrastinating. You could tackle what you know needs to be tackled. You could clean up what is screaming to be cleaned up. As the seasons change, as the clocks move forward, as new growth appears on the trees, there is room for other forms of renewal. This is the time, the Stoics would say, right now is the time.

1:02Ryan Holiday: Otherwise, we are, as Seneca said, the fool who is always getting ready. Epictetus, for his part, laid down a similar challenge. How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best for yourself? Everyone knows there are things that we need to reset, to improve, to be better at, to live better, to think better. Many of us even know what to do, but maybe life has gotten in the way and we haven't followed through. So that's the question. If we're not going to do it now, when are we going to do it? And I want to say that it's not too late. You can stop putting it off. You can stop waiting for things to happen.

1:47Someone has to take control, and that someone is you.

1:52Ryan Holiday: Forget how the first three months of the year have gone. Forget the excuses you have made. Forget the compromises you have made. That's the lovely thing about the idea of spring's renewal. It wipes clean the past. We have a chance to start fresh. And that's what we're doing. Me and thousands of other Stoics all over the world are doing the 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. It's 10 days of Stoic-inspired challenges designed to help you get serious about the things you have been putting off to refocus, to reconnect, to renew. After a crazy winter, I was crazy at my house. I'm sure it was crazy for you.

2:29Ryan Holiday: I think we could all use an opportunity to get back on track. And maybe you even procrastinated a little bit on signing up for the challenge. Well, this is your last chance. Sign up for it. I'll see you in there. I'm doing the challenge right now as you are listening to this alongside a bunch of other stoics who got a jump on you. stop putting it off. Let's do it. 10 Stoic challenges to help you get serious, to help you own the rest of 2026. And it's going to be awesome. We're going to be doing some live calls. You get access to the community, you get the progress tracker and a bunch of other awesome stuff.

3:05Ryan Holiday: And just think about where you could be 10 months from now if you got serious right now. Spring forward with me and thousands of other Stoics all over the world doing the daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash spring, but this is your final, final, final chance. I'll see you in there.

3:30Ryan Holiday: Shopping at Whole Foods is one of the things I do in our family. Like the grocery shopping is my job. So I was glad to be able to do that even on vacation. And then, you know, being here in Hawaii, It was the same Whole Foods experience we're thinking about, but then also a bunch of regional stuff, too, that they only have at this Whole Foods. We love shopping at Whole Foods because there's always new flavors and foods to choose from whichever Whole Foods you are like, whichever Whole Foods you happen to be at. So save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market, and maybe I'll see you at the Whole Foods in Austin sometime.

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5:23Ryan Holiday: This book and these tools are references that you can turn to for the rest of your life to make your setbacks into comebacks.

5:53Today's entry is about the portable retreat. It is in the future, on vacation, on our day off, when we plan to get out into nature that we think will find peace and release from the crush of the everyday demands of life. But this never really seems to happen as often as we think, does it? And when we do get that peace, it's difficult to keep it once we're back in the fray. Well, for the Stoic, all this is madness. The true retreat is in the freedom of our own mind and soul to consider the gifts we already have can be our refuge for all time if we take the time daily to do so. So good for you taking a little quiet time this morning or evening to listen to a podcast.

6:34It's not cramming you full of info, but it's a bit more philosophical. And then hopefully you've got the Daily Stoic Journal out or the Daily Stoic. But we've got three quotes in this week's entry, one from Marcus, one from Epictetus, and another from Marcus. Mark's Relius Meditations 4.3. He says, People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can at any moment find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy treat than inside your own soul, especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered.

7:18Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed. Then Epictetus says, Remember, it is not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us, also the desire for peace and leisure and travel and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another. Where our heart is set, there our impediment lies. And then Marcus Riele says, Remember that your ruling reason becomes unconquerable when it rallies and relies on itself, so that it won't do anything contrary to its own will, even if its position is irrational. How much more unconquerable if its judgments are careful and made rationally?

7:56Therefore, the mind freed from passions is an impenetrable fortress, and a person has no more secure place of refuge for all time. That's Meditations 848. Wait, I'm thinking about this because I'm just doing a little recording here before I go to town. It's my kids' spring break. We're going to spend a week down at the beach. And I look forward to this and I enjoy it. And I sometimes weirdly get more done there, more present there. You are a different person on vacation. But the Stokes would say, why? Does it have to be that way? What does it say that your life is something that you feel the need to escape from?

8:35So one of the things that I try to do, I mean, I like going down there. It's one of the perks of working for myself. I don't have to be in one location. And sometimes a change of scenery is good for things. But I ask myself, you know, what is it about my routine there that allows me to not feel so rushed in the morning, spend more time with the kids, sort of right at leisure? Why do I seem to have more time in the day? Why am I always available to catch the sunset? And what is stopping me from being able to do that at home? That's what Marcus is saying. He's like, look, the thing that's working here is you.

9:08You're finding the retreat in yourself, that moment of stillness or whatever. And that's available to you anywhere. He says that inside your own soul, there is peace and not so much busyness. I love taking my family. We go to Big Bend a couple of times a year, one of my favorite national parks. And what I love while we're there is looking up at this incredible sky. So a little light pollution there. The stars just, they feel like they pop right out of the black sky. I remember we went and then I was back a couple weeks later and I had to go take the trash out or something. And I live out in the country.

9:41There's not a lot of light pollution where I live. And I sort of looked up for a second and I was like, this sky is almost as good as it is there. We drove eight hours to look at stars. And how many nights do I walk to take out the trash or get something my kids forgot in the car? and I don't take a minute to just step up and look, right? That's kind of what I'm thinking about here is so much of what we give ourselves on those retreats or those vacations or those time away, we could have inside ourself any time we choose. And indeed we deserve to do that. And I think about, you know, I read more, but I could read more here.

10:21I just, I throw my phone in the other room and I forget about it for a while. And I need to do that here. You need to do that here. Give yourself a staycation. Give yourself a life that's a little bit closer to that vibe where you're a bit more philosophical. You're taking the time. You're retreating into your own self. You're finding the refuge that is there inside yourself. That's what it's all about to me. That's what I think the Stoics are reminding themselves. And look, Marcus Aurelius had a country estate. Epictetus had a country estate. They all traveled. They all saw the world. They weren't saying you never do it.

10:53They're just saying don't do it as an escape. Don't do it fooling yourself that it's not something you could have now inside yourself at any moment. And in fact, you must do it just takes a bit more discipline. It's not as easy as buying a plane ticket and planning a trip. So I hope whether it's close to your spring break here or not or what plans you have, you take this lesson from the Stoics seriously because it's an important one. And it's one I'm struggling with and thinking about myself. And I hope today's perspective was helpful. you can grab this cool cover we have for the daily stoke journal at store.dailystoic.com if you don't have the daily stoke journal you can grab them as a package and i'll sign it and it's cool it says make time on the front and it's a reminder from epictetus every day and night keep thoughts like this at hand write them read them aloud to talk to yourself and others about them that's what i'm doing on this podcast that's what you're doing by listening i really appreciate the opportunity to do that i'll talk to you all soon