The Daily Stoic - There’s Two Ways It Goes Now | Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 2,000-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, visitdailystoic.com. As Caesar overwhelmed and dismantled the Roman Republic, the Romans faced an impossible choice. Neither option was good, but it was all they had.

Starting point is 00:01:09 They could allow it to happen, except the bridle, as Plutarch put it, and with some humiliation hold on to their estates, their status, and their lives. Or they could resist desperately, hopelessly, against overwhelming odds. It's like the lyrics to the Mount Joy song, and by the way we had a great conversation with the lead singer Matt Quinn on the podcast who came by the studio not long ago. It's one of my favorite verses. Let me play it for you real fast.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Cicero chose to go along. powerless to stop what was already in motion. Caesar was too strong. The Republic had already fallen. But Cato's resistance, even at the cost of his own life, made a lasting statement. It was a declaration about freedom and principles so powerful that it inspired the founding fathers of the United States 1,700 years later when they built a new nation around those same ideals. A stoic doesn't always win, but they never go quietly along. They don't default to convenience or comfort. Whether it's standing against corruption in the workplace or resistant injustices in society,

Starting point is 00:02:35 Astoic speaks out. They act with courage and conviction, not just for themselves, but for the principles they believe in, and for the generations who come after them. As the Mountjoy lyrics suggest, there is always a choice to let the flame burn out or to keep the fire alive. That's what Astoic does. They fight to keep the light from going out to preserve what matters. Because the Republic, literal or metaphorical, matters. And what you stand for, what you believe in, matters. It's worth to fight. It's actually funny. We had Matt Quinn on from Mount Troy pretty early on when the band was small, but I was a big fan. That was a remote one. And then he was going to be in town two years later, and they're selling out the Moody Center.

Starting point is 00:03:25 How incredible is that? What a cool arc. Anyways, I think the themes of today's email are obviously pretty relevant to what is happening in the world now, unfortunately. And obviously, these are some themes I explore in Courage's calling and in Right Thing right now. So check some of those things out and do enjoy the interview. We've been hiring for some positions at Daily Stoic lately. And when you have roles you're trying to fill, it can be difficult, right? want to fill the roles quickly, but you also want to find the right people. So that's really a question. How do you find amazing candidates fast? Well, the answer is just use Indeed. When it

Starting point is 00:04:10 comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. With Indeed's sponsored jobs, you stand out and hire fast. And with sponsored jobs, your jobs, jump to the top of the page to help you find relevant candidates quickly. How fast is Indeed. In the minute we've been talking here, 23 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job more visibility at Indeed.com slash daily stoic. Just go to Indeed.com slash daily stoic right now to support the show and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash daily stoic. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Indeed is all you need. Do not be deceived by fortune. This is the September 8th entry in the Daily Stoic, and our quote today comes to us from Seneca in his letter on consolation to Helvia. That's his mother. It's a beautiful essay. You can read it on the shortness of life, one of my favorite little collections of Seneca's writings.

Starting point is 00:05:23 But we'll get to the quote now. He says, no one is crushed by fortune unless they are first. deceived by her. Those who aren't pompous in good times don't have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it's precisely in the good times that they prove their strength against adversity. In 41 AD, Seneca was exiled from Rome to Corsica, for what exactly were not sure, but the rumors were that he had an affair with the sister of the emperor. Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter to his mother seeking to reassuring to reassure.

Starting point is 00:05:57 sure her and comfort her in her grief. Her grief being that she missed her son. But in many ways, he must have been speaking to himself as well, scolding himself a little for this unexpected twist he was taking pretty hard. He had managed to achieve some measure of political and social success. Maybe he chased some pleasures of the flesh, but now he and his family were dealing with the consequences as we all must bear for our behavior and the risks we take. How would he respond? How would he deal with it? What the very least, his instincts were to comfort his mother instead of simply bemoaning his suffering. Though some other letters show that Seneca begged and lobbied for his return to Rome and to power, a request that was eventually granted, he does seem to have

Starting point is 00:06:41 borne the pain and disgrace of exile fairly well. The philosophy that he'd long studied prepared him for this kind of adversity and gave him the determination and patience he needed to wait it out. when he found his fortune restored as he returned to power philosophy prevented him from taking it for granted or becoming dependent on it this was good because fortune had another turn in store for him when the new emperor turned his wrath on seneca philosophy found him ready and prepared once again it's a tension right seneca says we suffer more in imagination than in reality you don't want to just be thinking of all the terrible things that could happen you don't want to be biting their nails in anticipation of this or that. And yet, if you are naive, if you trust in fortune,

Starting point is 00:07:27 you are setting herself up for pain. He says, never forget a fortune's habits of behaving exactly as she pleases. You know, as we become successful, as we get things, we start to go, this is how it should be, I earned this, I made this, it's mine. And maybe a lot of that is true. You're not the ultimate decider. Something can take that from you. Unfairness can take it from you. And justice can take it from you. Tragedy can take it from you. The emperor can take it from you. So if you are deceived by fortune that this is yours now, that this is the new normal, that this is stable, you have bought into an illusion and that you can be disabused of that illusion at any moment. How painful will that disillusion be?

Starting point is 00:08:09 My favorite line's an invisible man. He says, how does it feel to be free of illusion? It's painful and empty. We build our lives around these illusions, around the sense that this is how it should be. all is right in the world, you are begging. You are begging for life to visit some humility upon you. So we have to be careful. We have to be aware. We have to practice. We have to prepare. We have to train. We can't take any of it for granted. None of it is nearly as stable as it appears. That's what Seneca realized, not just at this exile, but early on his life when tuberculosis

Starting point is 00:08:44 sent him to Egypt to convales. Nero turned to be insane. That's what life does. It reminds us. It doesn't go the way we want it. And I think it's problematic how often we say things like, this is unprecedented, this is not normal. This has never happened. This has always happened. This is always how it's going to be. Normal is crazy. Normal is chaos. Normal is sudden reversal. I was just reading Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money and he has this line in there. Unexpected things happen all the time or things that have never happened before happen all the time. That's the wisdom of what Seneca is trying to say. there. That's what we prepare for, train in this philosophy for, is to be ready for precisely those kind of events. So imagine, again, and if you haven't read on the Shortness of Life, pick up a copy there in The Painted Porch, if you could, I'll link to it in today's episode. There's something sweet about the fact that Seneca is the one exiled, but he's writing the consolation to his mother. It's not his mother saying, you got this kiddo, it'll be all right. He's saying, mom, I'm okay. It's going to be all right. He's comfortable. He's

Starting point is 00:09:50 comforting the people who are grieving and missing him. That's what this discipline of philosophy can be. That's what Seneca practiced for. And that's what we're working towards. I'll leave that here today. Self-control, that's what Seneca was embodying there in his stoic, lower-case stoic handling of the terrible injustice dealt to him. Hey, it's Ryan.

Starting point is 00:10:19 Thank you for listening. listening to the Daily Stoag 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 of 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. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, It's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads,

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The Daily Stoic - There’s Two Ways It Goes Now | Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune

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