← The Daily Stoic
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- [00:00]
Ryan Holiday
Foreign. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is Based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. Help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit Dailystoic.com. These days you need double what it takes. You think Marcus Aurelius wasn't prepared? Of course he was. Almost no one received more on the job training than he did roughly two decades under Antoninus. He had fantastic teachers. He was trained in stoicism, a philosophy which not only prepared for the worst, but never expect the best. And still, still life rocked him. His reign was marked by an unending series of troubles. Misfortune after misfortune befell him. Plagues, war, the death of his children, an unfaithful wife. Surely this exhausted his reserves. Surely this taxed him beyond capacity. And yet, yet still he had to keep going. As we all do. Sometimes life feels like it's out to get us. It throws every type of adversity at us. Illness, financial troubles, relationship issues, inequality and injustice. But still we must keep going. We can train, we can prepare, we can stock up, we can rehearse in our minds what we need to do. This will not be enough because more will be expected of us. Still more will be piled onto our plates. Enough is not enough. We'll need double, maybe more. Especially these days. We'll need to reach deep down inside us to find some more. We'll need to keep going, even on empty, because it's going to take what it's going to take and all we can do is take it. Or not. Just this morning, as I do every morning, I was taking the supplements that I take. And if you're not taking any supplements, well, January is a good time to think about doing that. Choosing the right supplements can be confusing because there's so many brands and you know, it's kind of a low trust category. It's not super regulated. The products are easy to make and the companies don't even have to say everything that's on their label. That's why we are happy to work with Momentous and why I take their supplements. They've become a high trust brand in a low trust category. They don't just meet the industry standard, they built the momentous standard, which is their commitment to doing things the Right way, not the easy way. Momentous sources only the highest quality ingredients on the planet. Their whey protein comes from grass fed European dairy cows. Their creatine uses the purest form of creatine, creatine monohydrate. And nearly every formula is made with clinically backed, highly bioavailable nutrients with no fillers and no artificial sweeteners. My wife is like allergic to everything. She's very sensitive about what she puts in her body and when she doesn't. And she loves their stuff too. If a product doesn't meet Momentous standards, it doesn't hit the shelves. In a space where trust is rare, Momentous is redefining what trust looks like. And right now, Momentous is offering our listeners up to 35% off your first order with promo code Daily Stoic. Head over to livemomentous.com and you use promo code Daily Stoic for up to 35% off your first order. That's livemomentous.com, promo code daily Stoic. Today's sponsor is Chime, the fee free banking app changing the way people bank. Chime is not just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking for everyday people with products like MyPay, which gives you access to up to $500 of your paycheck anytime and can get you paid up to two days early with direct deposit. No more overdraft fees, minimum balance Fees or monthly FE +Chime makes your everyday spending work harder by delivering real rewards and financial progress. I know my younger self would have benefited from this. There was so much to manage and I was so busy, you know, working on my career and trying to do all the things I was trying to do. I didn't want to have to think about overdraft fees or my minimum balance or how much is in my checking account. I didn't want to take time from what I was doing to transfer money from this account to that account. It would have been so convenient to have it all in one place, accessible on my phone. If you want a bank fee free plus overdraft coverage, you should switch to Chime Plus. You can earn up to 3.5% APY on your savings. That's eight times higher than a traditional bank. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's also the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free. Today. It takes just a few minutes to sign up. Head over to chime.comstoic that is chime.comstoic.
- [05:49]
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- [06:12]
Ryan Holiday
Reignite your thoughts this is today's entry in the Daily Stoic. I'm holding the leather bound edition today. In my hands. Your principles can't be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it is continually in your power to reignite new ones. It's possible to start living again, see things anew as you once did. This is how to restart life. That's Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7:2 have you had a bad couple weeks? Have you been drifting away from the principles and beliefs that you hold dear? It's perfectly fine. It happens to all of us. In fact, it probably happened to Marcus. That's why he scribbled this note to himself. Perhaps he was dealing with difficult senators or having difficulties with his troubled son. Perhaps in these scenarios he lost his temper, became depressed, or stopped checking in with himself. Who wouldn't? But the reminder here is that no matter what happens, no matter how disappointing our behavior has been in the past, the the principles remain unchanged. We can return and embrace them at any moment. What happened yesterday, what happened five minutes ago, is in the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like. Why not do it now? I think it's it's pretty lovely that although Marcus seems like this impossible ideal, this philosopher king, this magnificent, peerless human being, several times in Meditations he talks about picking himself up when he fails. He talks about getting back up when you fail. Because he did fail. He fell short a lot, right? He must have. He writes this in Meditations. He says that we shouldn't feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions, he said. But try to get back up when you fail to celebrate behaving like a human, however imperfectly, and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on. He's saying that not to you, but to himself. Because like you, he fell short. He screwed up. I think. Again, we think of self discipline like someone who's in great shape. Someone who sticks to a diet, someone who has good habits. We think of them as perfect. That's really not what they are, actually. Part of that is having the high standard, falling short, and then not writing yourself off or giving in to that new thing, right? To be able to come back to the habit, to reset, to recommit when one falls short. You know, we want to say, ah, what the hell does it even matter? We throw in the towel. We quit because we screwed up or we fell short. But I think what Marcus is saying is, like, look, you can screw up, you can fail. Or, like, things can knock you off your block. Like, life can happen to you. You don't control that, but you always control whether you get back up, come back to it or not, right? He says we can't be extinguished, only we can snuff it out. To me, that's what he's saying, that we always have the power to come back to it, to start anew, to restart, to recommit. So, you know, maybe you're doing the New Year, New Challenge with us right now. Maybe you've already fallen short on some of your resolutions. Maybe. Maybe you relapsed. I don't know. Maybe you lost your temper this morning. I don't know. But you can come back to it, right? You can start living again. It's in your power to reignite, to come back to it, to pick yourself up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human being, to fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on. Don't be exasperated. Marcus is saying, don't be defeated. Don't be despondent. You're not perfect. No one thinks that you are. It was silly to expect that you could be. I like the advice from Oprah where she says, like, just because you ate one of the Oreos doesn't mean you have to finish the sleeve, right? Like, pick yourself back up. Don't snuff it out. Don't quit. Don't quit on yourself. Keep going. Don't give up. That's what today's message is. Reignite. Come back to the philosophy. Recommit to it. I know you can do it. Let's have a great year together. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word. Tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you, Sam.