Podcast Summary: The Daily Stoic

Episode: The Age of Catos is Gone (or Is It?) | Ryan Holiday Owes Everything To This One Book
Date: January 30, 2026
Host: Ryan Holiday (Daily Stoic)

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into a fundamental question: Is the age of people like Cato—individuals committed to old-fashioned ideals of virtue, integrity, and courage—truly gone, or are those values still alive today? Host Ryan Holiday connects this theme with a personal reflection on the life-altering impact of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, sharing practical Stoic wisdom for maintaining virtue and purpose in a world that often feels chaotic and cynical.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Age of Catos": Lost or Enduring?

• Historical Perspective: Holiday opens with the sense, echoed through generations, that the era of upright figures like Cato is over. This nostalgia for “better days” is not new—it existed even in Cato’s time.
  • “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.” (A, 00:36)
  • Despite pessimism about the present, living virtuously is always an available, active choice: “We are proving that the age of Catos is not over. We are proving that someone still cares. We are keeping the flame alive. We are carrying the fire.” (A, 01:37)
• Literary Reference: Holiday references Binks Bolling from Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and the wisdom of Aunt Emily: “A man must live by his lights and do what little he can and do it as best he can. In this world, 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.” (A paraphrase, 01:53)

2. The Transformative Power of Meditations

• Personal Testimony: Holiday credits all his success and growth to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius:
  • “I can trace everything good in my life... 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.” (B, 03:01)
• Why Read It: He urges listeners to make it their one annual read for the power it contains to shape a life with intention and virtue.

3. Practical Stoic Lessons from Meditations

• Focusing on the Essential
  • Key principle: doing less, but doing what’s truly important.
    • “He says if you want tranquility, you must do less…not nothing, but less. You have to do what’s actually important.” (B, 03:53)
    • Holiday’s practical hack: a sign on his wall that just says “NO!”—a visible reminder to say no to the inessential so he can say yes to what matters most, like his children.
• How We Interpret the World
  • Citing both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius: it’s our judgments, not events themselves, that disturb us.
    • “It’s not things out in the world that are making you upset. It’s your opinions about what’s happening in the world…” (B, 04:46)
• The Obstacle is the Way
  • “What Marcus…talks about repeatedly in Meditations is choosing to see this thing in front of you as an opportunity…” (B, 05:39)
  • Obstacles are tests that summon our virtues and allow us to access strength we wouldn’t find otherwise.
• Managing Worry and Anxiety
  • Don’t let imagination torture you; most suffering is mental.
    • Holiday paraphrases Marcus and Seneca: “When we suffer before it is necessary, we suffer more than is necessary.” (B, 08:21)
  • Stay rooted in the present and avoid catastrophizing—just because “your kid coughs doesn’t mean they’re going to get sick...”
• Anxiety is an Inside Job
  • “Today was a good day because he escaped anxiety. He didn’t get anxious. Then he goes, actually, wait, no, no. I didn’t escape it. I must have discarded it. Because anxiety is within me.” (B, 09:15)
  • Holiday stresses: “The call is coming from inside the house.”
• Asking for Help is Strength, Not Weakness
  • Marcus’s analogy: soldiers storming a wall must sometimes accept a helping hand.
    • “Asking for help isn’t giving up. In fact, it’s the refusal to give up.” (B, 11:28)
• Service to the Common Good
  • Marcus Aurelius’s example during the Antonine plague: selling personal possessions to aid Rome.
  • Principle: “Leaders eat last”—real strength is selflessness.
  • “If you 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.” (B, 13:10)
• Redefining Good Fortune
  • Aurelius again: true good fortune is “having good intentions, having good character and doing good deeds over and over again.”
  • “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.” (B, 13:50)

4. The Ultimate Stoic Mandate

• Holiday's favorite passage from Meditations (displayed on his edition’s back cover):
  • “Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being…Do it without hesitation and speak the truth as you see it, but with kindness, with humility, and without hypocrisy.” (B, 14:37)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 00:36 | “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.” | Ryan Holiday | | 01:37 | “We are proving that the age of Catos is not over. We are proving that someone still cares.” | Ryan Holiday | | 03:01 | “I can trace everything good in my life…back to a single book. Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.” | Ryan Holiday | | 03:53 | “If you want tranquility, you must do less…not nothing, but less. You have to do what’s actually important.” | Ryan Holiday (on Marcus Aurelius) | | 05:39 | “What stands in the way is the way.” | Ryan Holiday (on Marcus’s philosophy) | | 08:21 | “When we suffer before it is necessary, we suffer more than is necessary.” | Ryan Holiday paraphrasing Seneca | | 09:15 | “Today was a good day because he escaped anxiety…actually, no, no. I must have discarded it. Because anxiety is within me.” | Ryan Holiday (on Marcus Aurelius) | | 11:28 | “Asking for help isn’t giving up. In fact, it’s the refusal to give up.” | Ryan Holiday (on The Boy, the Fox, the Horse, and the Mole) | | 13:10 | “If you want to feel good…well then, we’ve got to do good.” | Ryan Holiday | | 13:50 | “If you want to see something that gives you hope, do something hopeful. Do something for someone else…” | Ryan Holiday | | 14:37 | “Concentrate on what you have to do…Remind yourself your task is to be a good human being…speak the truth…with kindness, with humility, and without hypocrisy.” | Marcus Aurelius (read by Ryan Holiday) |

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 02:27: The “age of Catos,” traditional values, and why keeping the Stoic flame alive is a daily choice.
• 03:01 – 04:46: The singular impact of Meditations on Ryan’s life and why everyone should read it.
• 04:46 – 09:15: Stoic psychological principles: focusing on what’s essential, judgments vs. realities, overcoming anxiety, the obstacle is the way.
• 09:15 – 11:28: The internal nature of anxiety and the necessity of community and asking for help.
• 11:28 – 13:50: Stoic leadership, generosity, and service to the common good, inspirational real and historical examples.
• 13:50 – 14:54: Closing reflections and Ryan’s favorite passage from Meditations for living with virtue and truth.

Key Takeaway

The age of Catos is not gone. It lives on in anyone who chooses daily to embody virtue, resilience, and service to others. And by digging into timeless Stoic wisdom—especially in the pages of Meditations—anyone can fan that flame and carry the fire forward.