The Daily Stoic - This Is How To Change Your Life | 25 Brutally Honest Stoic Reminders From Marcus Aurelius

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

How can we make a great fortune out of misfortune? Reverse our circumstances, as Epictetus did?💡 We designed our How To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) as a personal field guide —part book club, part masterclass, part daily practice. It’s designed to help you not just read the words of Epictetus, but live them—to turn his timeless wisdom into real change in your own life and the lives of those around you.And if you get the guide before July 26th, you’ll receive a private invitation to an exclusive LIVE Q&A with Ryan Holiday, where he’ll go deep on all things Epictetus, Stoicism, and how to apply these ideas right now, in today’s world. Head to dailystoic.com/epictetuscourse to learn more and get your book, guide, and bundle today!👉 Get How To Read Epictetus (A Daily Stoic Guide) & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life | dailystoic.com/life📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 to 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 DailyStstoic.com. This is how you change your life. He was born a slave.

He was tortured and endured hardship that few can even imagine. And yet Epictetus, whose name literally means acquired one, was never broken. He never relinquished the command over his mind, never allowed others to control his thoughts or emotions. Instead, he mastered the art of resilience and discovered that while we may not choose everything that happens to us, we always have the power to choose how we respond. As he said, even Zeus cannot deprive you of that fortune. How can we seize this power for ourselves? How can we find a great fortune inside even misfortune? How can we reverse our circumstances as Epictetus did? Well, we can do it the same way Epictetus himself did, through philosophy.

You see, Epictetus studied under Musonius Rufus, the so-called Roman Socrates, who instilled in Epictetus that philosophy was not a diversion or a luxury, but a necessity, a discipline, a way of life. And then after earning his freedom, Epictetus established his own school in the city of Nicopolis, where students from all over the empire, including the

Emperor Hadrian, came to learn. So what did Epictetus teach? Well, we've been doing a deep dive into those teachings. It's Epictetus month here at Daily Stoic. What Epictetus taught was that most people are not enslaved by others, but by their own passions, their fears, their attachments. That our judgments, not events themselves, are what disturb us. That we must train ourselves to be indifferent to the things outside of our control. And that freedom lies in wanting only what we can control, our character, our choices, our reason. Now, Epictetus didn't write any of these teachings down. He taught through conversation, not books. His classroom was not an ivory tower. It was rigorous, even confrontational, a place

where students were challenged not just to understand the stoic ideas, but lived them. And almost 2,000 years later, those lessons captured by his student Arian remain one of the most practical entry points in stoicism. And as I said, that's what we've been doing here the whole month of July at Daily Stoic. We've been doing a deep dive into your favorite philosopher's favorite philosopher, this guy, Epictetus. And thousands of stoics all over the world have been doing this with us, and we'd love to have you join us because tomorrow on July 26, we're doing a deep dive into Epictetus's life. we'd love to have you join us because tomorrow on July 26 we're doing a deep dive into Epictetus's life. We'd love to have you join us. You can right now grab entry to that plus a discounted

copy of our favorite translation of Discourses and our How to Read Epictetus Guide all at a 25% discount. If you just go to dailystoic.com Epictetus course. I would also add if you're a to dailystoic.com slash Epictetus course, I would also add if you're a Daily Stoic Life member, you can get the course totally for free. That's dailystoiclife.com. And I'll leave you with a thought from Epictetus. He said, how much longer are you gonna wait

before you demand the best for yourself? How much longer are you gonna wait till you figure out this great teacher? As I said, your favorite philosopher's favorite philosopher. I don't know, hopefully not one more day because I'd love to talk to you tomorrow in the Q&A and you can sign up right now at dailystoic.com slash epic t to scores to learn more,

get your book, your guide and your bundle now. The Stoics didn't dance around the truth. The Stoics didn't dance around the truth. In fact, Marcus Rilius hated people who said, let me be honest with you. He said, no, it should be written on your forehead that what you say is what you mean. If it's not true, don't say it. But conversely, I think also if it is true, you have to say it. And sometimes those truths can be hard to hear. Sometimes those truths make us uncomfortable.

Nobody said the truth would be easy, but that doesn't make it any less essential. So here are some hard-hitting, brutally honest reminders from Marcus Aurelius. The people you meet are gonna suck. This is the harsh truth that Marcus Aurelius opens meditations with. He says they're gonna be jealous and annoying and difficult and stupid.

They're gonna be all these things. We know they're gonna be these things. We have to go into the day with our eyes wide open. That's the harsh truth part of it. But the uplifting part, the happy part of it is the second part. He says, but they can't implicate you in ugliness. And he says more importantly, remember that you're made to work together, that life is incomplete without those kinds of people.

And that we're related and that we share an affinity and a bond for each other. We can't be surprised by it, we can't let it suck us down, and we can't let it change us for the negative. We still have to be good, we still have to do our job, we still have to play our part. You think you're a good person but you're hurting people.

Mark Strasse reminds himself in meditations he says remember you can commit an injustice by doing nothing also. And you know there's the things that we turn away from, the things we don't want to think about, the things that we say are someone else's problems, the things we say we can't do anything about. And those are injustices that we are allowing to be perpetrated. We're complicit in that unless we try to do something about them. Most of what you do is totally inessential. Mark Sewell says that that's a question we have to ask ourselves. In everything we do we have to ask ourselves is this essential? Because

so much of it is trivial, so much of it is trivial, so much of it is unnecessary, so much of it is inefficient. When you eliminate the inessential, what you get is the double benefit of doing the essential things better. So you want to constantly be eliminating, constantly paring things down, constantly asking yourselves,

do I really need to be doing this? Is it important? Is it gonna move the needle? Why am I doing it? How could I do it better? You eliminate the inessential and you do the essential better. Whenever you're anxious,

whenever you're worried, whenever you're stressed out, whenever you're doubting, you know what you're doing? You're extrapolating. And the ancient Stokes would say that extrapolation is the enemy. Marcus really tried to remind himself

when his kids got sick, he said, my kid is sick. I don't need to tell myself they're gonna die from it. He says, you can't let your life be crushed by your imagination as a whole. You can't picture every bad thing that could possibly happen. You have to stick with what's in front of you.

You have to stick with what is in your control. The anxiety is not being caused by the external thing, the Stoics would say. The anxiety is within us caused by the external thing the Stoics would say. The anxiety is within us. We are the common variable between all the things that worry us, between all the things that upset us, between all the things that convince us the world is ending. We are the common variable. We are bringing ourselves, our opinions, we are projecting our feelings onto objective events. So stop doing that. Stop extrapolating. our feelings onto objective events. So stop doing that. Stop extrapolating. Focus on what's in front of you. Stick with idea and action and utterance, the Stoics say. That is plenty to keep you busy.

It's not unfortunate that this happened to you. Mark Surilis writes this to himself in Meditations. He says it's fortunate that this happened to you. He says because I've remained unharmed by it. He was saying that, you know, his character hadn't been affected. But I think more importantly, he's saying, "'Now I get to do something with it.'" That's what the obstacle is, the way he means. "'Now I get to do something with it.'" It's good that it happened to me instead of someone else because I'm the one that's uniquely suited,

uniquely trained to do something with it. You are impotent. Your anger is impotent. Mark Sturlus in Meditations, he quotes a line from a lost play by the playwright Euripides and the line says, and why should you feel anger at the world as

if the world would notice? Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. Your anger, your resentment, your grievance, you are shouting into an enormous void. You are yelling at an inanimate object. You are mad at the weather. You are mad at forces that are so enormous, that are utterly amoral, completely indifferent to you and your existence. So you might as well let it go. The best revenge is to not be like

that, the Stokes would say. And if you think about it, yes, people can hurt you, but when you look at those people, who they are, why they do what they do, it doesn't actually feel like they're getting away with anything. They're their own worst enemy. It sucks to be them. So the Stoics say you give up on revenge. You give up on getting even because you already won. You are already better by not being that person.

The best revenge, Marcus really says, is to not be like that. You're weak if you lose your temper. Stoicism was a masculine philosophy, but Marcus really has pointed out how sort of pathetic it is that we get overwhelmed by our emotions and we lash out at people.

Men sometimes judge other men for crying, but it's strange that we don't judge each other for losing our temper, which actually does hurt people, which is of less purpose. So when you feel that sort of rage or anger coming on this, the Stokes say get control of yourself, get command of yourself, say is this who I want to be? Is this what being a mature adult is? And

the answer is almost certainly no. You're not going to be remembered. You're not that important. Mark Cerulli, he says run down the list of all the people that came before me. He says what what happened to all these famous names, these names that used to sound so familiar? You know what they are now? They're like what Taylor Swift talks about. Who's who, who's that? We all disappear, we all recede into memory.

We are all forgotten. A very relevant reminder from the Stoics in these crazy times. You don't have to let this upset you. You don't have to turn this into something. They're not talking about disengaging from the Stoics in these crazy times. You don't have to let this upset you. You don't have to turn this into something. They're not talking about disengaging from the world. They're just saying you don't have to let your feelings get hurt all the time. You don't have to let everything make you anxious or worried. You don't have to extrapolate this out to what it could possibly

mean. You don't have to follow every news story. You don't have to let this upset you. Marks really says you don't have to turn this into something You can just let it be you can accept the information You can focus on what's in your control you can focus on what you need to do You don't have to turn this into something your problem is that you want the third thing Marks through this is okay. you did something good for someone. They received that benefit. That's awesome. Transaction concluded.

You don't need the third thing. Recognition, gratitude, appreciation. You don't need the world to throw you a parade. You don't need acknowledgement. And you didn't even do anything special. You did your job, which is to do good, to be good, to help people, to be kind. You did the right thing, that's enough. The obstacle is not the problem.

You're the problem. Your opinions about it are the problem. Your orientation towards it is the problem. The Stoics say the obstacle is the way, right? The impediment to action advances action when it stands in the way becomes the way. What do they mean by that? Marcus Springsteen is saying that there's something you get to do because of this, right? There's things that you can do now that you couldn't do before. There's an opportunity for you to act with courage or discipline or justice or wisdom. There's something you can do now that you couldn't ordinarily do. We can't let a crisis go to waste. We have to use this thing in front of us. Yeah, it seems like an obstacle, but now there's something we get to do because of it if we do it. Part of the reason your life

sucks is because your thoughts suck. Marx really says that our life is died by the color of our thoughts. So if we see only negative, if we only see the worst in people, if we only see what's impossible, if we only see how we screwed up, that's gonna color our perception of reality. Your life is dyed by the color of your thought. If your life is negative, if it's full of grievances, well, of course the world is gonna look that way to you. Even though he was the emperor of Rome,

even though it was 2,000 years ago, Marcus really still wanted the approval of other people. We all do, we wanna be liked, we want to be respected, we want to be admired. But this leads us astray because these people, they don't know what they're talking about. And that's one of the things that Marx really says in Meditations. He says you have to look at who they really are, these people whose approval you long for. He says think about what their mind is really like.

He says when you can delve into this, when you can see who they are, it loses its power over you. You realize these are not people whose respect you need. These are not people whose approval you need to crave. You just need to do what you know is right. You need to focus on what's in your control and you leave the rest to everyone else. A person can change, but people, people don't change.

You can change, but the world, the world abideth forever. It is undefeated. It is exactly the same as it ever was and ever will be. This is what we see in Mark Cirillus' meditations. His complaints about humanity are the exact same complaints we have today. People complain, people are dishonest, people are jealous, people are lazy, people are jealous, people are lazy,

people are loud, people are people. We've been waiting on the world to change for a very long time and it doesn't. This is why Mark Strelius reminds himself, don't go around expecting Plato's Republic. That's not where you live. That's not how things work. This isn't about being cynical,

but in deciding not to be naive, we are setting ourselves up actually to be less cynical. This isn't to say that you shouldn't try. This isn't to say that we can't make a difference. No, that's actually the whole point. Most of all, we can't take this personally. Most of all, we shouldn't set ourselves up for disappointment or disillusionment.

Don't stay up waiting for the world to change. It's not going to. If you wanna see change, you you have to be change you care about yourself more than other people You're self-interested as all people are by definition and yet Marks Reels points out We care about other people's opinions more than our own We care if they like what we wear if they like what we say if they think we're good or or bad or whatever It's insane trust your opinion develop your own internal compass, your own internal sense of whether you're doing a good job or a bad job, whether you were successful or not.

You can't outsource it to the crowd. Remember, the crowd is the mob, the mob is irrational. You can't let them determine any of it. It all gets rendered very, very insignificant very, very quickly. There's a great Roman poet and he said, in life Alexander's ambition was bigger than the world.

The world wasn't big enough to contain him. And yet, he says in the end, a coffin was sufficient. Marcus Rulis would say something very similar about Alexander the Great. He said, you know, Alexander the Great and his mule driver, they both died and the same thing happened to both. And the same is true for you. You're being crazy, letting them determine

whether you did a good job or not, whether you're happy or not, whether you're a success or not. Mark Zruela says, ambition is tying your happiness to what other people do and say and think. Sanity, he says, is tying it to your own actions. So what part of the process, like when I work on my books, the writing of the book is up to me, right?

How it does on the bestseller list, what people think about it, what the reviews say, and that isn't up to me. So my definition of success is an internal one. I'm focused on the parts of it I control. Do I want other people to like it and care about it? Sure, I guess it's nice to have, but it's extra. It's not why I do it, because to want that,

or worse, to need it it is to be insane and of course incredibly vulnerable. Being clapped for, being celebrated, all the things you think you want, it's worthless. What is it, Mark Struhle says, cheering is a clacking of tongues, clapping is a smacking of hands. And by the way, who's doing the cheering and clapping? Do these people actually know what they're talking about? Do they know what's good and what's not good?

No. So stop trying to chase what the crowd wants they know what's good and what's not good? No. So stop trying to chase what the crowd wants, what the mob wants, it's not important. You're never gonna escape change. Life is change. Mark Surreles reminds us that being born was a change, death is a change. Every good thing in your life came from a change.

So did bad things, of course, but everything in life is change. You cannot escape it. You can only accept it. You can only embrace it. You should mind your own business. Deal with your own problems. Mark Suriles reminds us, like,

we should stop trying to escape other people's faults. We should try to escape our own. It's gonna take a lot out of you. It's gonna take more out of you than you think you have. Mark Suriles is in one passage in Meditations, he's trying to amp himself to get out of bed in the morning. He goes, it's warmer under the covers here. I like being comfortable.

He says, you weren't made to be comfortable. You weren't made to huddle under the covers and be warm. He said, no, people who love what they do, they wear themselves down doing it. He said, there's a limit on the eating and the sleeping and the fun side. You got to get out there. You got to do what your nature demands and you got to understand it's going to be hard and it's going to take a lot out of you. Marcus Aurelius' prescription for these crazy times is very simple. He said, you can't be careless in your actions. You can't be confusing in your words.

You can't be imprecise in your thoughts and you can't retreat into your own soul. You can't try to escape what's happening. You can't be overactive or busy. You focus on what's in your control, which is you. You try to keep an even keel and you say that whatever is happening, however it goes, what it ultimately is for me is an opportunity for me to be my best, to do my best, to do good. I'm gonna embrace the obstacles.

I'm gonna embrace the difficulties. This is going to make me better. You got to stop wasting time talking about this stuff, arguing what a good person is like, what the right thing is, these complicated virtue ethics. Mark Struth says, waste no more time arguing what a good person is like, just be one. You're gonna die, that's the stoic idea of memento mori. Life is very, very short. You could leave life right now,

let that determine what you do and say and think. You could go at any moment, and in fact, you do and say and think. You could go at any moment, and in fact, you will go at some moment, and that moment could be very, very soon. When I wrote The Daily Stoic eight years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would just keep it going. The book was 366 meditations, but I'd write one more every single day

and I'd give it away for free as an email. I thought maybe a few people would sign up. Couldn't have even comprehended a future in which three-quarters of a million people would get this email every single day and would for almost a decade. If you want to get the email, if you want to be part of a community that is the largest group of stoics ever assembled in human history, I'd love for you to join us. You can sign up and get the email totally for free. No spam. You can unsubscribe whenever you want at dailystewitt.com slash email.