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The Daily Stoic
The Age of Catos is Gone (or Is It?) | Ryan Holiday Owes Everything To This One Book
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Welcome to the daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice and wisdom into the real world. The age of Catos is gone. Or is it? We're a long way from the old days when people held themselves to certain standards. When politicians believed in something, when people believed in something greater than themselves. As Binks Bolling says in the Walker Percy novel the Moviegoer, the age of Cato's is gone. It felt that way then when Walker Percy was writing in 1961, and it feels that way now. But the funny thing is, it probably also felt that way even in Cato's time, that the age of his great, great grandfather, Cato the Elder, had passed. And in fact, that was something that Cato the Elder was worried about in his time too. It always feels like traditional values are slipping away. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. It doesn't really matter though, because we have a vote. We get to decide whether we are going to live up to those ideas and ideals. We can decide to be honorable and operate with integrity. We can decide to believe. We can decide to be good. We can decide to stand up up for what's right. And when we do this, you know what? We are proving that the victory is not yet final.
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We are proving that the age of.
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Cato's is not over. We are proving that someone still cares. We are keeping the flame alive. We are carrying the fire. As Aunt Emily tells Binks in the Moviegoer, a man must live by his lights and do what little he can and do it as best he can in this world, she says, goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man. So we must decide to do what we can and to keep going, even when it feels like goodness is losing.
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I can trace everything good in my life. I can trace me being here right now, in this moment, all back to a single book. Marcus Aurelius Meditations. It's a book that shaped me as a person, as a husband, as a father, as a writer, as a thinker, as a human being. And it is also the reason you are watching this video today. These 200 or so pages here, private thoughts written down over 2,000 years ago, never intended for publication, have the potential to be some of the most transformative words you will ever read in your life. And if you only read one book this year, I think it should be this one. It's a book I try to read myself every single year, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. I'm going to give you some of the most powerful lessons from this incredibly powerful book and how they've shaped me as a person. You have to focus on what's essential. Marcus Aurelius believes that this is the key to a productive and happy life. He says if you want tranquility, you must do less. He's not saying do nothing, but less. He's saying you have to do what's actually important. And he says if you eliminate these inessential things, if you ask yourself, is this something essential? And then the answer is no, you eliminate it. He says when you eliminate the inessential, you get the double benefit of doing fewer things better. It's so difficult to do this, and it's so easy to try to do more than you need to be doing. I think it's important to have a reminder somewhere to remind you what is essential, to remind you to say no to what is in essential. Actually, on the wall next to my desk, I have a big sign, and it just says no with an exclamation point next to it, but on top and below that sign are pictures of my kids. And to me, it's an essential reminder of what is essential. And that when I am saying no to the things that are inessential, what I'm actually doing is saying yes to the things that are essential. It's not things out in the world that are making you upset. It's your opinions about what's happening in the world that are making you upset. This is something that Epictetus says. He says it's not things that upset us, it's our judgment about things. And Marx really says something very similar in Meditations. He says external things are not the problem. He says it's your assessment of them. You're deciding that this is bad. You're deciding that this is a lost cause. You're deciding that this is unfair, you're deciding all of these negative things. And you don't have to see it that way. You don't have to focus on that. You can focus on something else instead. Namely, what are you going to do about it? Which brings us to one of the most important ideas in Stoic philosophy, that although we don't control what happens, what other people do, we control how we respond to it. We control what we do about it. This is Marx's famous passage that the impediment to action can advance action. What stands in the way is the way. What it means to say the obstacle is the way. What Marcus Willis talks about repeatedly in Meditations is choosing to see this thing in front of you as an opportunity. Because everything is an opportunity, according to the Stoics. Not an opportunity to make money necessarily, to have a lot of fun. It's an opportunity to grow, to change, to learn. It's an opportunity to practice virtue. The Stoics want you to see the challenges and adversity in life as something that's calling something from you. It's calling you to step up. It's asking, are you going to rise to meet this challenge? What are you going to do in response to this? What are you going to draw from inside yourself that you wouldn't have been able to access under ordinary circumstances, that you're going to bring to the equation now? And we see this in Marcus Aurelius himself. You know, his reign is an unending series of troubles. It's floods and famines and plagues and wars. It's one thing after another. But his greatness comes from the fact that he isn't broken by this, that he doesn't run away from it, that he acquits himself admirably and justly, that he doesn't despair, that he doesn't become bitter, that he doesn't become mean, that he doesn't become closed off or selfish. This thing in front of you can be that for you. Can it make you better? Can you rise to meet it? Can this obstacle be the way? Can it be a way for you to become something that you couldn't have become under normal circumstances? That is what Stoicism is about, and that's ultimately what Meditations is about. Don't let your imagination torture you. It is a bad use of your creativity. Mark Suiz talks about this in Meditations. Not letting yourself be crushed by everything that's out there, everything that's coming at you, everything that could be happen. He says, you want to stick with the situation at hand. So, yeah, the world is chaotic. Yeah, there's a lot going on. Yeah, this could happen. That could happen. So and so. Saying this so and so is worried about that. We have to understand most of this, though, is just rattling around in here, that we're making things worse in our heads than they actually are. Seneca talks about this also about how when we suffer before it is necessary, we suffer more than is necessary. And in fact, we often suffer more in our brains than we do in reality. So what you see in Meditations is Marcus Reus using the pages of this book to work through his thoughts logically, to balance himself out, to calm himself down, to stick with what is in front of him. He talks about not extrapolating. Just because your kid coughs doesn't mean they're going to get sick. And then they're going to die of it, and then you're going to be a wreck, and then you won't. He's trying to say, stick with what's in front of you. Don't get carried away. Don't let your mind run wild. That's what stoicism is. It's about keeping things on kind of an even keel, about not getting too high, not getting too low, staying focused on what you need to focus on. You are the cause of your anxiety. This is what Marcus is saying in Meditations. In fact, in one passage, he talks about how today was a good day because he escaped anxiety. He didn't get anxious. Then he goes, actually, wait, no, no, I. I didn't escape it. I must have discarded it. He says, because anxiety is within me. It's because of my own perceptions, not outside. Right. The airport is not what's making us stressed. The airport's not doing anything to us. We are stressed at the airport, work deadlines, what's happening in the news. These things are objective. They are outside us. And then we bring anxiety to them. We are the common variable in all the things that make us anxious or excited or upset or frustrated. And so we have to realize that if we don't want to be anxious, if we don't want to be stressed out, if we don't want to feel that way, we are going to have to change something within ourselves. It's not about external circumstances. That's not who's to blame. The call is coming from inside the house. So, yeah, a stoic is tough. A stoic is strong. A stoic doesn't whine. A stoic doesn't complain. But that doesn't mean that a Stoic can't ever ask for help. Yeah, a Stoic blows their own nose. A Stoic is brave. A Stoic carries the load. A Stoic even carries the load willingly for others when necessary. But they also have to be able to ask for that same favor in return. Marcus Aurelius in Meditations talks about how we're like soldiers storming a wall. If we have fallen and we need to ask a comrade for help, if we need to extend a hand to be pulled up, so what? In fact, not just so what, but like, that's what the other soldiers are for. Just as we are perfectly willing to help someone else, we have to be willing to let others ask us for help too. There's a great line in the Boy, the Fox, the Horse and the Mole. It's a book I read my kids sometimes. He says, you know, asking for help isn't giving up. In fact, it's the opposite. It's the refusal to give up. Right? You're like, I've taken this as far as I can. I'm stuck. But I don't want to remain stuck. I want to keep going. I'm not going to give up. And that's why I need help. And I think we want to see the Stoics this way and we should see Marcus this way as someone who is strong enough and brave enough to ask for help when he needed it. A Stoic puts other people first because that's what we're put here for, for each other. Marx writes in Meditations, and there's a great story of him doing exactly this. He lives through a terrible plague. It hits Rome. The Antonine plague devastates Rome. It kills countless millions of people. It causes all sorts of chaos. Rome's economy is depleted. And in this terrible state, with people dying and people feeling hopeless and country running out of money, what does Marcus Aurelius do? He holds a two week sale on the lawn of the Imperial Palace. He sells off jewels and furniture and robes and perfumes. He sells the stuff that theoretically belongs to him, but he understands that none of it is more important than other people. And he's saying, as I think all great leaders do, that the leader takes the hit first. That he wasn't just trying to look after himself. He didn't need this stuff. The country needed the revenue more. You know, you could liken this to a boss who cuts their own pay in a down market. A sports star who readjusts their contract so the team can pick up better players. Right? Or as the Marines say, leaders eat Last right. We put other people first. We give up our comfort to, to help others. That's what being great and selfless and good actually means. If we want to feel good, especially in a world that's dark, that's depressing, that's filled with people not doing good, well, then we've got to do good. There's a passage in Meditations where Marcus Aurelius is lamenting all the things that have happened to him recently. And we know it was a lot. He says, I was once a fortunate man, but at some point for fortune, abandon me. And then he goes, you know what? No, that's not right. He says that's not the right way to think about it because that's waiting for things outside your control. He says, no, good fortune has to be in this. Having good intentions, having good character, and doing good deeds over and over and over again. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius talks about serving the common good something like 80 times in meditations. So yeah, stoicism is a philosophy about individualism and resilience and toughness and just, you know, surviving the blows of fate. But it's also about doing things for other people, caring for other people. And in a dark world, if you want to feel good, do good. He says, dig deep the water goodness is down there. And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up. If you want to see something that gives you hope, do something hopeful. Do something for someone else. Do something in service of something larger than yourself. That's what stoicism is about. As I wrap up, I'll give you my favorite passage in all of Meditations. I put it here on the back of this edition, which we actually put out for the Daily Stoic. Mark Schmule says, concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being. Remind yourself what nature demands of people. And then he says, you have to do it without hesitation and speak the truth as you see it, but with kindness, with humility, and without hypocrisy.
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