Every Day Is A Chance For This | The Present Is All We Possess
That was the purpose behind Stoicism, behind the journaling, and the reading, and studying of this philosophy, behind the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge (which starts on Tuesday, the first day of spring)—to use each day as an opportunity to improve yourself action by action, step by step. This might not seem like much, as Zeno said, but it adds up to no small thing.Every one of us wants to improve, wants to be better, wants to have better habits, live better, think better. But most of us wait to launch that business, write that novel, develop that fitness routine, to do what we know is right. We’ll do it when we’re more secure, we say, we’ll do it later, or in the fall, or next year, when things get back to normal. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life, Seneca reminds us. It snatches away the present in exchange for some promised future.Every day is a new season. Every day is spring, whatever hemisphere you’re in. Every day is a chance for a new beginning. That every day we awake, we can choose a new life, a new way, to rededicate ourselves to becoming the best versions of ourselves.As we’ve been saying, this is a chance to begin afresh, afresh, afresh. And that’s what we’re all going to be doing in the Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. It’s designed to push you to examine those parts of your life, those habits, those choices that could move you closer to living your best life. You could have the good life, the life you deserve, right now!Participants will receive:✓ 10 Custom Challenges Delivered Daily (Over 15,000 words of all-new original content)✓ One live Q&A session✓ Printable 10-Day Calendar With custom daily illustrations to track progress✓ Access to a Private Community PlatformIt is a new season, and it can also be the beginning of a new you, too. Give yourself 10 days of improvement and a runway for true, sustainable change.Challenge yourself to spring forward to be the person you know you can be. Don’t wait any longer to live the life you deserve. Head over to dailystoic.com/spring and sign up NOW!-✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
15 Maalis 202411min
Don’t Rush Through This | Ask DS
Seneca makes the point, however, that what we are really rushing towards—with all deliberate speed—is death. That’s what he means when he says that we get death wrong. Death is not some distant thing in the future, not some one-time thing that looms ahead. Instead, death is something happening to you right now. It’s happening as you read this email (hope it’s been worth it!), it’s happening as you struggle to put your daughter’s shoes on so you can drop her off at school and then it’s happening still more as you sit down to that coffee meeting you rushed to even though you didn’t want to have it in the first place. It happens as you procrastinate, it happens as you distract yourself, it happens as you make bad choices, it happens as you worry and dread and whine.And that’s why we created The Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge. It’s a set of ten brand-new actionable challenges designed to push you to examine your choices, your relationships, and your day-to-day patterns and move you closer to living your best life.“Remember how long you’ve been putting this off,” Marcus Aurelius writes, “how many extensions the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them.” He reminds us “that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.”Don’t rush through life, don’t rush toward death. Use the time assigned to you and sign up for The Spring Forward Challenge NOW at dailystoic.com/spring! Challenge starts March 19!----On today's episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with Kentucky Wildcats Men's Basketball Team in which he focuses on the timeless wisdom of the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.*A note on the audio for this episode: an issue with Ryan's live mic resulted in the discrepancy in audio quality that you hear. We apologize for the inconvenience.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
14 Maalis 202412min
Slow Productivity and Anticipating Consequences | Cal Newport PT 1
In the first half of this two-part conversation, Ryan talks with computer science professor and bestselling author, Cal Newport. They discuss the facade of hustle culture, understanding what really moves the needle in your process, Cal’s latest book Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, and more. Cal Newport is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. His scholarship focuses on the theory of distributed systems, while his general-audience writing explores intersections of culture and technology. He is the author of eight books, including Slow Productivity, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work. Newport is also a contributing writer for the New Yorker and the host of the Deep Questions podcast.Watch or listen to Cal’s podcast, Deep Questions.Subscribe to Cal’s newsletter, here. Listen to Cal’s take in The Wealthy Stoic: A Daily Stoic Guide To Being Rich, Free, and Happy. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
13 Maalis 20241h 4min
You Gotta Be Able To Do This
Marcus Aurelius was, of course, an incredible man. He endured more than most people. He had more power than most people—and wore it more lightly. He did more work on himself than most people, understood people, and himself, better than most people.Was he perfect though? Of course not. No one is.In Lonesome Dove, the Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow Call seems almost superhuman, especially to the young cowboy Newt. Newt worships the ground the man walks on, believing he isn’t like the rest of them. And in a sense, he isn’t. The Captain can ride further and faster, is more principled, less afraid, tougher than everyone on the Plains.We know Marcus Aurelius made mistakes. We know he paid lip service to admitting error in Meditations, to not continuing in error just because you began in one. But how good was he in practice? It’s less clear. He was wrong about his son Commodus for example. Was he too proud to admit this? Here, or elsewhere, did he have trouble owning that he was just like everyone else? That he could screw up? That he had human urges and human flaws? We hope so but we don’t know.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
13 Maalis 20242min
You Don't Want To See This | The Stoic Guide To Freedom And Power (From Epictetus)
That obnoxious person. That contractor who ripped you off. That slow driver. That overly enthusiastic exercise instructor. That brusk receptionist. That clingy parent. That friend holding a grudge. That loud neighbor.They’re not exactly your favorite. They don’t exactly make your life easier. But you know what you need to remember? You need to remember that they are just doing their jobs. “Is a world without shameless people possible?” Marcus Aurelius asks in Meditations. No, it isn’t, he reminds himself. So why am I surprised to find one he says? Somebody has to be that person and this person is it.---In the first century AD, few would have argued that Epictetus was the most powerful person in Rome. Few would have argued that this lowly slave possessed any power at all–in fact, the name said it all: Epictetus means acquired one.Most of us are born into this world closer in status to Epictetus than Marcus Aurelius. We are more lowly than we are exalted. Yet each of us, as Seneca said, has access to the greatest empire, ruling over ourselves. Will we seize this kingdom? Or will we trade it away for superficial, shiny things? We free ourselves through our freedom of choice, or will we hand that freedom over to the mob, to our urges, to our fears?Grab a signed copy of Lives of the Stoics and Courage is Calling from the Daily Stoic Store. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
12 Maalis 202413min
Everybody Is Doing Their Job | Think About It From The Other Person's Perspective
That obnoxious person. That contractor who ripped you off. That slow driver. That overly enthusiastic exercise instructor. That brusk receptionist. That clingy parent. That friend holding a grudge. That loud neighbor.They’re not exactly your favorite. They don’t exactly make your life easier. But you know what you need to remember? You need to remember that they are just doing their jobs. “Is a world without shameless people possible?” Marcus Aurelius asks in Meditations. No, it isn’t, he reminds himself. So why am I surprised to find one he says? Somebody has to be that person and this person is it.In her wonderful book on parenting, Good Inside, Dr. Becky Kennedy discusses what to do when a young child is having a full-on meltdown, what to do when they’re hitting a sibling because they’re upset or frustrated. Of course, your job is to keep them safe, to intervene but as that’s happening, she says we ought to say to ourself, “My child is doing their job of expressing feelings. We are both doing what we need to do. I can handle this.”That’s what Marcus Aurelius tried to do when he encountered jerks and liars and cheats. That’s what you have to do with the people you encounter in your life. Your kids are kids—it’s their job to freak out sometimes, it’s their job to be kids. At least they’re having fun with it. That overbearing police officer? Someone had to be a bad cop…and they’re it. Sucks for everyone, but definitely for them. Somebody has to be the slow driver, the neighbor that gets on everyone’s nerves, the whatever. This is their assignment.But our assignment? Like the parent lovingly calming down that angry toddler, our job is to be patient, decent, calm, and understanding. It’s a hard job but it’s a good one. It’s our job.--And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt, Ryan discusses the importance of questioning our own perspective while trying to understand and empathize with others'.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
11 Maalis 20249min
Are You Spending This Wisely? | Lives Of The Stoics ( Antipater the Ethicist )
Today is that day many dread—the day the clocks spring forward. Yes, in the middle of the night, you lost an hour that you’ll never get back. An hour of sleep, an hour of leisure, an hour to spend with your kids. You mourn that loss of time, wondering all the ways you could’ve spent it otherwise.He is the pupil and successor of Dioghenes ho Babylonios (Diogenes of Babylon or of Seleucia) as head of the Stoic school. Antipater is also the teacher of Panaitios ho Rodos (Panaetius of Rhodes). In the field of ethics, Antipater seems to take a higher moral ground than that of his teacher Dioghenes.Today, Ryan reads from his book Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius to share the winding and often confounding story of one of the most important figures of Stoicism.To pre-order Ryan's latest book, Right Thing Right Now, click here.Don’t fall into this trap and join us TODAY for the Spring Forward challenge. It starts March 19 and is set up to push you to examine your habits, your choices, and your relationships to move you closer to living your best life here and now.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
10 Maalis 202420min
Changing the World with Civility and the Core of Stoicism | Alexandra Hudson
Ryan speaks with author Alexandra Hudson about how to navigate pragmatic situations through civility, unbundling the mental framework of people, her new book The Soul of Civility, and more. Alexandra is a writer, speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition, now available for streaming. She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.Get a signed copy of The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves from The Painted Porch.IG: @alexandrahudsonX: @lexiohudsonStay engaged with Alexandra's work by joining her newsletter and community, Civic Renaissance.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
9 Maalis 20241h 19min
