Daily Stoic Team Member (3:45)

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Ryan Holiday (3:51)

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Ryan Holiday (4:02)

But.

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Toyota Owner/Testimonial Speaker (4:08)

In between.

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Daily Stoic Team Member (4:31)

The real power you have.

Ryan Holiday (4:34)

That's what we're journaling about in the Daily Stoic Journal.

Daily Stoic Team Member (4:36)

That's where this little meditation comes from. There is fleeting power and there is real power. Fleeting power can be taken away while real power is in our minds and our bones. The former tends to be along the lines of wealth, fame, high position, and the leverage that all those things give us over others. The Stoics thought that this kind of power was inferior to the real power that each person possesses, the power of our minds to reason and make judgments and choices based on the real worth of things. You can have both kinds of power too, but only if you keep the first kind of power subject, the kind of power that the Stoics actually cared about. So Chrysippus, who I talk about in Lives of the Stoics as well, he says, this is the very thing which makes up the virtue of the happy person in a well flowing life. When the affairs of life are in every way tuned to the harmony between the individual divine spirit and the will of the Director of the universe, Then Epictetus says, don't trust in your reputation, your money or position, but in the strength that is yours, namely your judgments about the things that you control and don't control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and the powerful. That's Discourses 3:26 and then Marcus Aurelius in Meditations 12:19 says, Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine that causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that? I think the fact that we can talk about Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus as peers, even though one was utterly powerless and the other possessed all the worldly power there was, is an amazing illustration of what Epictetus is saying when he says, for this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye with the rich and the powerful. And in fact, you know, Epictetus works in Nero's court. He is a slave of one of Nero's high ranking officials or secretaries. And in Epictetus's writing, we get a sense, we get him really realizing and trying to communicate later to his students that, like, he realized that as a slave he had a better life than many of these people, that he was freer. He watches at one point, somebody sucking up to Nero's cobbler, like the guy that makes Nero's shoes, is getting flattery because the person wants to get closer to the emperor. And Epictetus realizes that that person who's doing that is of course freer and richer and more privileged than Epictetus in essentially every way, but is then voluntarily debasing themselves is a slave to their need for power or recognition or money or whatever it is, that person is willingly a slave. And Seneca in that same court talks about this. He says, you know, nothing is more shameful than this sort of form of voluntary slavery. Nothing is more shameful than these people who are addicted to a mistress, to their estates, to being, you know, the most famous or popular person in Rome. And so I just. I think it is a powerful statement that amongst the Stoics, some of the most powerful and influential and inspiring were the least powerful and recognized. Cleanthes is a manual laborer, but he's considered a peer of Hercules because of his ability to endure things, because of his judgments, because of his incorruptibility. Marcus Aurelius was not the greatest conqueror of the Roman emperors, but he is one of the most impressive because he conquered himself, right? He possessed the throne, the throne did not possess him. And so this idea of being free, of chasing the real power, which is power over one's wants, power over one's opinions, power over one's actions, power over, you know, those impulses that might drive you to do this or that, that's real power. There's a line in one of Steven Pressfield's books where Alexander the Great is taunting this philosopher and he says, what have you done? I've conquered the world. The philosopher says, I have conquered the need to conquer the world. And I think Pressfield is saying the same thing the Stoics are saying, the same thing that Epictetus is saying. He's probably drawing on Diogenes the Cynic, but that there is a level of power above the level of raw power that people chase and debase themselves with. So that's your question, your thing to think about today. What kind of power are you chasing? What are you pursuing? Are you really as powerful as you think you are? Or does power have power over you? 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.

Toyota Commercial Voice (10:25)

The world is full of tours.

Ryan Holiday (10:29)

But.

Toyota Commercial Voice (10:29)

You don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places in between the detours, where each adventure pulls you toward the next. And wrong turns turn out right. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour?

Toyota Owner/Testimonial Speaker (10:52)

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