The Daily Stoic - Rule The Empire Between Your Ears | We Reap What We Sow

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Epictetus, who was a slave, looked around at Nero’s court and saw rich and famous men who were less free than he was. Because they spent all their energy trying to get more than what they had, because their happiness was tied up in what other people thought, because their fears were based on things that were not up to them. In The Girl Who Would Be Free (our fable based on the life of Epictetus), Epictetus’ father says that to be great, we first have to focus on “the empire between our ears.” He’s referring to our thoughts, our emotions, our urges, our desires, our fears…our own choices.In The Girl Who Would be Free, Ryan Holiday’s beautifully illustrated, all-ages fable, we learn how Epictetus went from a slave to one of the most influential philosophers of all time. This book, along with The Boy Who Would Be King, are great for helping explain Stoic philosophy to your kids. You can pick up signed and personalized copies here.---And in today's excerpt from The Daily Stoic, Ryan reminds us to detangle ourselves from toxic uncontrollable situations. As Seneca quotes "Crimes return to their teachers" giving us insight on treating people how we want to be treated.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double-duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Heart of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman.

So today, it will give you a quick meditation from the Stokes with some analysis from me, and then will send you out into the world to turn these words into works. Rule the empire between your ears. It'd be nice to be the headhuncho, it would be cool to be the owner, it'd be nice to look out over a vast bit of territory and say, this is all mine. This is the fantasy, this is the ambition that drives so many of us, that drove so many in the ancient world, too. But as the Stoics noted, when we pursue power control

or money, we end up neglecting what's right in front of us. Epictetus, who was a slave, looked at Nero's court and saw rich and famous men who were less free than he was because they spent all their energy trying to get more than what they had because their happiness was tied up and what other people thought because their fears were based on things that were not up to them. In the girl who would be free are fable based on the life of epictetus. Epictetus's father says that to be great, we have to first focus on the empire between our ears. He's referring to our thoughts, our emotions, our urges, our desires, our fears,

our own choices. You have to understand that if we rule this, then we are the headhunter, then we are the owner, then we do control an immense territory. We're more powerful than many emperors, many conquerors, and many billionaires, whereas free as it's possible to be. I'm actually just so proud of that book, The Girl Who Would Be Free. I did. The boy who would be king early in the pandemic that book, The Girl Who Would Be Free. I did the boy who would be king early in the pandemic. I did The Girl Who Would Be Free later in the pandemic.

The idea was like, how do I tell the story of stoicism for all audiences? But I was really writing to my my own two young boys. And the books have been really, really cool. And people have loved them. I was just signing a bunch of copies downstairs at the Payton Porch. You can grab them there or you can go to store.dailystilloc.com. I think we have a deal where if you buy the signed copy of one, you get the other one, like 75% off something like that.

I'll link to that in today's show notes. Check it out. about. We reap what we sow. This is the October 27th entry in the Daily Stoic. Crimes often return to their teachers. This is from Seneca's play The Estes, which is a dark, disturbing play to put it mildly, but a fascinating read. It's ironic that Sennaika would have one of his characters under this line, because as we know, for many years Sennaika served as a tutor and mentor to the Emperor Nero. And while there is a lot of evidence that Sennaika was in fact a positive moral influence on this deranged young man, even at the time some of Sennaika's contemporaries found

it strange that a philosopher would serve as the right-hand man to such an evil person. They called him the tyrant teacher. And just as Shakespeare taught in Macbeth, bloody instructions which being taught return to plague the inventor. Seneca's collaboration with Nero ultimately ends with the student murdering the teacher. And it's something to think about when you consider whom you work with and collaboration with Nero ultimately ends with the student murdering the teacher. And it's something to think about when you consider whom you work with and whom to do business with in life. If you show a client how to do something unethical or illegal, might they return the

favor to an unsuspecting you later? If you provide a bad example to your employees, to your associates, to your children, might they betray you or hurt you down the road? What goes around comes around, is the saying, or karma. The notion we have imported from the East teaches us a similar idea. Seneca paid the price for his instructions to Nero, and as has been true throughout the ages, his hypocrisy, avoidable or not, was costly. And so too, will yours be? There's a great tweet that

came out March 12, 2019 that I think of often. It says me reaping, ha ha, fuck yeah, yes. And then it says me reap, it says me sowing, ha ha, fuck yes. And it says me reaping, well this fucking sucks, what the fuck? And then there is, of course, the other famous tweet that says, well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions. As the expression now goes, right, fuck around and find out, that's what happened to Seneca, right? Seneca rolled the dice,

thought he could feed the monster, thought he could can strain Nero. He was exactly like a lot of the figures that I talked about in my podcast episode with Tim Miller, the right wing political operative who watched, who saw so many people convince themselves, said these sort of minor savior complexes, that they were very important, they were important enough they could constrain Trump or get something out of them that would be good for them. And in the short, it always comes back to bite us, right?

The consequences of our actions come back to us, crimes, return to their teachers, you reap what you sow. And this was the biggest mistake of Santa Cous life. It's a mistake I've made in my life. I thought I was different. I thought the rules wouldn't, you know, I thought it was different. I thought I could make it work. I thought I was making a bargain that would work out. And it didn't. It never does. So we learn from the Stoics not just what they tell us, what they teach us, what they write about,

but the mistakes that they made in their life, right? Marcus Aurelius, his example shows us, hopefully something about being a better parent. Senica teaches us, you know, who to work for, who not to work for, how to detangle ourselves from clearly toxic, unresolvable, toxic, unchangeable situations. Senica never unfortunately speaks about this explicitly

or explicitly enough, he just sort of hints at it at his plays, but we can learn plenty from this example, and it's why I put it in the Daily Stoke, and it's just a reminder. Crimes return to their teachers. Hey, prime members. 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. Get game day ready at Bet MGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. From game-winning drives to unbelievable catches, Bed MGM gives you the chance to take those

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