The Daily Stoic - It's About Finding the Right Amount

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

When we hear the word “temperance,” C.S. Lewis observed, most of us in the modern world think of “abstinence.” Even when you look up the definition of abstinence, temperance is a synonym. But temperance, Lewis wrote, is actually about going to the, “right length but no further.”📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is available for pre-order now! We’ve put together a bunch of cool preorder bonuses—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at Dailystoic.com/preorder.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women.

For more you can visit us dailystow.com. It's about finding the right amount. When we hear the word temperance, CS Lewis observed, most of us in the modern world think of abstinence. When you look up the definition of abstinence, temperance is there as a synonym. But temperance, Lewis wrote, is actually about going to the right length, but no further. Temperance isn't about elimination going without or removing something bad, at least not all the time. It's also about moderation, finding the right amount of something, anything.

It's Aristotle's famous metaphor of the golden mean, the idea that virtue usually sits between two vices. Courage is somewhere between cowardice and recklessness, confidence between crippling self-doubt and blinding arrogance, hard work between workaholism and laziness, generosity between person moniousness and prolificacy. But it's important to realize that virtue, this finding of the halfway point is difficult. Reading the Stokes can only make this more difficult. Don't procrastinate, Marcus tells us, and then with the next breath,

he says, don't be all about business. Read, read, read, he says, but don't forget to close your books and engage with the world. Sennaka tells us to be prepared for the worst right after he tells us not to worry about the dangers of the future. Epic Titus tells us to acquiesce to fate and embrace our own destiny.

And look, it's not that the Stokes were contradicting themselves. It's that balance finding the right amount is a high art. It takes work and study and practice to figure out what the right thing to do is and the right amount at the right time and the right way. And that's really what I'm talking about in the new book, Discipline Estestiny, Power of Self-Control.

Discipline Estestiny, which you can pre-order now, there's like a week left to get all the bonuses, dailystaylock.com slash pre-order, is not just a series of emotions about restraining yourself, but I tried to write a book on the power of and the path, the balance, moderation, finding the right amount. You see, Aristotle was not the only one who spoke of a golden mean. The inscription on the Oracle of Delphi was nothing in excess. In

Islam, there's a saying, every praise worthy characteristic has to blame worthy polls. And central to Buddhism is the middle way. In fact, each of the commandments and the eightfold path is about finding the right amount in the critical areas of life. Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right finances, right effort, right speech, right action, right finances, right effort, right mindfulness, right connection. Indeed, it's impossible to find a philosophical school of thought or religion that does not

and manage us to have a middle ground, to find the middle ground. And so when all the wisdom of the ancient world agrees on something, you'd be a fool to ignore it. So I would love for you to pre-order the new book, Discipline is Destiny, because it's a guide about that to cutting the middle course through those dangerous poles of life to find the golden mean everywhere necessary. And there are a bunch of awesome preorder bonuses among them signed copies, numbered pages from the original

manuscript. I've got a copy from Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire that I've framed in my office. It means so much to me. Hopefully one of these pages might speak to you the same way. And you can check all that out at dailysteilic.com slash preorder. You can preorder the book from anywhere, although we've got a super low price on the site, whether you want audible or e-book or whatever. Wherever you preorder, whatever you live, whatever language you speak, preorder the book. I'll send you these awesome bonuses to mean so much to me if you can pre-order the book. I can't wait to hear what you all think. Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal. We'll take time and effort, it won't be free, but by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper will ultimately be achievable in life-changing. So take the first step on the path to a calmer and

more fulfilling future, check out Tame In Your Temper the 10-day Stoic Guide to controlling your Flash, Anger. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight.

Together, they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app.