We Can Give This to Each Other | Be Stingy With Time - The Daily Stoic

The Daily Stoic | "We Can Give This to Each Other | Be Stingy With Time"

Host: Ryan Holiday
Date: December 2, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of The Daily Stoic with Ryan Holiday centers on two Stoic themes: our collective obligation to care for others and the personal wisdom of being miserly—or stingy—with our time. Drawing on Seneca’s teachings and the Roman legacy of the “grain dole,” Ryan reflects on how we can give tangibly (like providing meals on Giving Tuesday) and intangibly (by being intentional with how we spend our time). The episode includes actionable reflections, historical context, and personal anecdotes about the value of both generosity and boundaries.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Roman Grain Dole and Stoic Duty to Others

[00:55]

Ryan references Seneca’s essay “On the Shortness of Life,” specifically a letter to his father-in-law Paulinus, who was responsible for the Roman “grain dole”—an ancient form of social support that distributed grain to poor citizens.
- "The Roman Empire was at that time enormous, with a population of some 45 million citizens... the government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good..." [01:29]
He connects this social obligation to the Stoic concept of the circles of concern (from Hierocles): starting with the self, then growing outward to family, community, country, and the world.
- “We have to draw these outer rings inwards, basically saying that the people in the outer circle need our help.” [02:11]

2. The Modern Parallel: Global Hunger and Giving Tuesday

[03:05]

Ryan highlights the modern reality: close to a billion people go hungry each night, including millions of children in America.
- "It's mind blowing to think that nearly a billion people around the globe go to bed hungry every night. More than 47 million people in America are food insecure, including 14 million children." [02:26]
He introduces Giving Tuesday as a modern opportunity to act on Stoic values by supporting efforts like Feeding America.
- “Instead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this is what we focus on… We're trying to raise $300,000 that'll provide 3 million meals.” [03:42]
Notably, he shares his own significant donation to set the example.
- "I put in the first 30,000. That's 10% of the goal. And then I'm just hoping that this community of roughly 1 million people can come together." [04:22]
Emphasizes collective action:
- “A dollar or two can provide as many as 10 meals... Let's be good stoics today.” [04:40]

3. The Value of Time: Insights from Seneca

[08:06]

The episode’s second half pivots to a meditation on time, referencing Seneca's “On the Shortness of Life”.
- “One of the most common sayings we hear, and you might have said this yourself, is that life is short. And it is, but as Seneca remarked, it's pretty long if you know how to use it.” [08:19]
Ryan explores how people are financially stingy but habitually wasteful with time.
- "No person would hand out their money to a passerby. But how many of us hand out our lives? We're tight fisted with our property and money, and yet we think too little of wasting time. The one thing we should all be the toughest misers about." [09:36]
Summarizes Seneca’s core lesson:
- “It is not that we all have too short a time to live, Seneca says, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough and it's given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well.” [10:01]

4. Personal Anecdotes: The Cost of Misallocated Time

[10:54]

Ryan shares two personal stories:
1. Pursuing a $200 Credit:
  - He estimates he spent more than $200 worth of his time chasing a TV delivery issue.
    - "I'd already objectively spent more than $200 of my time on this thing... If you just asked me, hey, would you spend $200 more on the TV and not have to go through this? I would have taken that option as well." [11:09]
2. Time at His Bookstore:
  - He enjoys meeting readers but notes that saying yes to every greeting would exhaust all his available time.
    - "People come by and they want to say hi. And I think sometimes people think it's rude that I won't run downstairs to see everyone that's here. And I can't do that..." [12:06]
  - He draws the boundary:
    - “You should be kind and treat people well... But you have to be a bit of a miser with your time because you're going to have to hurt people's feelings or not give them everything they want. When you say no, you're gonna have to say no sometimes and that's not fun. But I always try to remind myself who, when I'm saying no to one person, I am also saying yes to something else.” [12:40]

5. Practical Stoic Reflection: How to Be Miserly with Time

[13:02]

Ryan prompts listeners to put a real value on their time and periodically reassess recurring commitments:
- "Try to think about things that you can take off your plate so you can get that time back. But then think about what you are frivolously spending your time on and if that's worth it..." [13:20]
He encourages saying no as a positive act—knowing it enables a yes elsewhere in your life.
Echoes of Seneca on perspective:
- “If your neighbors encroached on your property, you would object, but if your neighbor came over and just wanted to gossip about nonsense, you would indulge that, right? And that's not a good idea. You have to be miserly with your time. Not selfish, not cruel... but a bit miserly with your own time and be stingy with it." [13:55]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Roman legacy of caring for others:
“Just as the Romans saw themselves as obligated to help those in need, we have to step up today.” [02:58]
On modern giving:
“Let's be good stoics today. Let's give here on Giving Tuesday and fulfill that obligation.” [04:40]
On the difference between money and time:
"No person would hand out their money to a passerby... But how many of us hand out our lives?" [09:41]
On practical boundaries:
"When I'm saying no to one person, I am also saying yes to something else. And conversely, when I'm saying yes to some inquiry, I'm also saying no to someone or something else, right? And that's just the struggle that we're on." [12:46]
On making time count:
“At the end of your life, when you go, man, that flu by I wish I had just one more day to do X. One more hour to do X. Right? Are you going to look back and be like, well, I am. I am glad that I spent X many hours doing this.” [13:28]

Timestamps for Important Segments

[00:55]—Historical context: Seneca, Paulinus, and the Roman grain dole
[02:11]—Circles of concern: from self to world
[03:05]—Modern hunger and call to action for Giving Tuesday
[04:22-04:40]—Fundraising details and personal contribution
[08:19]—Introduction to the topic of time and Seneca’s philosophy
[09:36]—Analogy: giving away time vs. money
[10:54]—Ryan’s story about wasted time on a TV delivery
[12:06]—The balance between kindness and boundaries at his bookstore
[13:02]—Reflection prompts: valuing and reclaiming time
[13:55]—Closing advice: be a bit “miserly” with your time

Summary Takeaways

Stoicism calls us to support others, not just in words but actions, embodying the ideal through tangible giving.
Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to translate Stoic values into real-world impact by helping feed those in need.
Seneca’s lessons remind us that while we guard our money and property zealously, we let our time slip away without a thought; the wise person is careful with their hours.
Being “stingy” with your time isn’t selfish; it's an essential discipline to ensure you use your one nonrenewable resource intentionally, for yourself and your highest purposes.
Reflection and regular reassessment of how we spend our time can help align our daily habits with our values and aspirations.

For further inspiration or to join the cause, visit DailyStoic.com/feeding.

Transcript

A (0:00)

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. We can give this to each other. In what is almost certainly his greatest piece of writing on the shortness of life, Seneca is writing to his newly retired father in law, Polinas. The good news, Seneca writes, is that Polinus will have time to produce the balance sheet of his own life rather than that of the grain market. The grain market? What was he referring to? Well, Paulinus was the longtime supervisor of Rome's grain dole. What was that? The Roman Empire was at that time enormous, with a population of some 45 million citizens. Jobs were scarce, unemployment was high. Rapid expansion and economic stagnation had led to a sort of economic recession, something that might sound familiar today. And in response, the upper and ruling classes came together and instituted something called the Care of the Grain. Basically, the government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good, and continuing until the last years of the empire. This was one of the most lasting and impactful of all Roman government programs. And it's actually an inspiring legacy that lives on to this day. And in fact, it's one that we've tried not just to speak to here at Daily Stoic, but to act on, as we've said before. Right. There's this Roman Stoic in Hierakles who spoke of our circles of concern. He said, we obviously have to care of our mind and our bodies and our immediate family and our extended family. But then we also have to care about our community, our country, our city, our empire and the world. We have to draw these outer rings inwards, basically saying that the people in the outer circle need our help. It's mind blowing to think that nearly a billion people around the globe go to bed hungry every night. More than 47 million people in America are food insecure, including 14 million children. And just as the Romans saw themselves as obligated to help those in need, we have to step up today. We have to illustrate those virtues of courage and justice towards and for and through others to help people from going hungry to alleviating someone else's worry and fear. Put food on their table and we can do this together. Today is Giving Tuesday. I don't know if you know what that is, but Giving Tuesday, basically coming off the excess of Cyber Monday and all that, people come together and they try to give instead of just trying to get. And we are raising money for Feeding America. We talked about this yesterday. And on Friday, instead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this is what we focus on. We try to have a big day on Giving Tuesday. Cause that actually matters. We're trying to raise $300,000 that'll provide 3 million meals. We just crossed the $200,000 mark, which is incredible. Thank you to everyone that donated, which is absolutely amazing. And I would love for you to kick in if you could. I put in the first 30,000. That's 10% of the goal. And then I'm just hoping that this community of roughly 1 million people can come together. If everyone just gave a few cents, we would get there very quickly. And a dollar or two can provide as many as 10 meals for. So let's do that. Let's be good stoics today. Let's give here on Giving Tuesday and fulfill that obligation. As we were talking about, that's Dailystoic.com feeding and let's get after it. It's time for Cyber Monday. Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right. You'll find the lowest prices of the year on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 plus with Intel Core Ultra processors and with built in advanced A features. It's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life. These PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you. Plus you can earn Dell rewards and join many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC. Improving the way you work, play and connect. Whether you just got started holiday shopping or you're finishing up, these PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now@dell.com deals and don't miss out on the best prices of the year. That's Dell.com deals. I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One because my 6 year old fell asleep in the car at like 6 o' clock and I transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic. So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a Eight Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is Eight Sleep's best product. I've used Eight Sleep for many years now and it's just totally transformed how I sleep. Made me sleep better, made my wife sleep better. It's amazing. So basically eight Sleep is this topper that goes over your mattress. It can heat and cool both sides separately. It can raise and lower each side separately so it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep and then wake up better. Eight Sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning as opposed to some loud blaring alarm. And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to 8sleep.comDailySTOIC and use code Daily Stoic to get $350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it. But I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep shipping to many countries worldwide. See details@eightsleep.com Dailystoic. Be Stingy with Time that's what we're journaling about in the Daily Stoic Journal. That's where this little meditation comes from. One of the most common sayings we hear, and you might have said this yourself, is that life is short. And it is, but as Seneca remarked, it's pretty long if you know how to use it. And the first step to that is not giving so much of this time away to other people. Being miserly about our time is a powerful exercise which can keep us from squandering the one truly non renewable resource. What in your life consumes a lot of time for no good purpose? What amusements or desires consume our time without giving us a good return? As you review that list, make a commitment to doing something about it. Life is short, after all, and you don't have much to spare, Seneca says. Were all the geniuses of history to focus on a single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness the human mind. No person would give even an inch of their estate, or the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay. Yet we easily let others encroach on our lives. Worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person would hand out their money to a passerby. But how many of us hand out our lives? We're tight fisted with our property and money, and yet we think too little of wasting time. The one thing we should all be the toughest misers about that Seneca on the shortness of life. It is not that we all have too short a time to live, Seneca says, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough and it's given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well. But when it's poured down the drain of luxury and neglect, when it's employed to no good end, we're finally driven to see that it has passed by without us even recognizing its passing. So it is we don't receive a short life, we make it so. Or as I've also heard it rendered by Seneca, it's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. And this all comes from his wonderful essay on the shortness of life, which you should absolutely read. It's a very powerful essay. It's worth rereading a couple times a year, to be quite frank. But I was thinking about this recently. I had sort of two good examples. Examples. Number one, I'm trying to get this television delivered and it was supposed to come and then it didn't come, so I messaged the people and then, then it was supposed to come the next day, so I messaged the people. Then I had to contact Amazon about it and then they said they were going to do it and then. But I got passed anyways. I'm spending time after time after time. And then at some point someone promised me a 200 credit on this TV which is, you know, I'm free $200, not bad. But it occurred to me that one, I'd already objectively spent more than $200 of my time on this thing. Like if what an hour of my time is worth. But also if you just asked me, hey, would you spend $200 more on the TV and not have to go through this? I would have taken that option as well. And I had to wrestle with how much energy am I going to spend trying to get this $200 credit that may or may not ever exist, the TV from these people may or may not ever to chase down. And so of course, if someone stole $200 for me, I'd be very upset, right? If they'd overcharged me $200 for this TV, I'd have been upset. But I'm willing to spend $200 of my time to either get this credit or to get this tv, right? And that's what we do. We waste our time. We, we value money and property, as Seneca is saying. But time is this like thing that we assume we have an unlimited amount of because no one, I don't know, it's just crazy. And then I think about this with the bookstore, which I love and I'm so proud of, but people come by and they want to say hi. And I think sometimes people think it's rude that I won't run downstairs to see everyone that's here. And I can't do that, right? Because not only do I have work, but if I did that for every single person, I would never have time. I'd use up all my time. I could spend almost the entire day doing that. And so when Seneca talks about being a miser, miser, if you're not familiar with that word, miser is like someone who's tight fisted with money. It's like a cheap person. But he's saying you have to be cheap with your time. You can't give it away. Yes, you should be kind and treat people well and not be rude about it and not be self absorbed. But you have to be a bit of a miser with your time because you're going to have to hurt people's feelings or not give them everything they want. When you say no, you're gonna have to say no sometimes and that's not fun. But I always try to remind myself who, when I'm saying no to one person, I am also saying yes to something else. And conversely, when I'm saying yes to some inquiry, I'm also saying no to someone or something else, right? And that's just the struggle that we're on. And if you have kids, if you have a spouse, if you have work, that's important, if you have potential you're trying to fulfill, if you're just trying to get better at yourself, it's gonna mean being tight fisted with your time, it's gonna mean saying no to people. And that's just how it goes. That's just how it goes. And so I would urge everyone to take a minute, try to think about what an hour of your time is, is worth, right? Try to think about things that you can take off your plate so you can get that time back. But then think about what you are frivolously spending your time on and if that's worth it, what are the rote tasks, the things that you do, the things that you go, ugh, you put off, you dread doing them. What are those things? Why are you still doing them? Do you need to be doing them? And at the end of your life, when you go, man, that flu by I wish I had just one more day to do X. One more hour to do X. Right? Are you going to look back and be like, well, I am. I am glad that I spent X many hours doing this. Think about your commute, right? How many hours you're going to spend doing that. Think about how many hours you spend in meetings. Think about how many hours you spend on ridiculous trivialities, right? I think what I like to point out with Seneca's thing about neighbors is like, yeah, if your neighbors encroached on your property, you would object, but if your neighbor came over and just wanted to gossip about nonsense, you would indulge that, right? And that's not a good idea. You have to be miserly with your time. Not selfish, not cruel, not indifferent to other people's time, of course, but a bit miserly with your own time and be stingy with it, as they said. And I'll cut this episode short. So I'm not taking up too much of your time, but you get the point. 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.