The Daily Stoic - This Isn’t How Anyone Wants It To Go (So This Is What We Have To Do) | Practice Love

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Nobody would choose most of the difficulties and troubles that they face. The question is how do you react when you get those difficulties and troubles anyway?🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE | Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/🎙️ AD-FREE | Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail--Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/DAILYSTOIC and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. This isn't how anyone wants it to go. So this is what we have to do. Do you think this is what Marcus Aureli's planned? Do you think it's what he wanted? That he hoped after two decades of relative peace and prosperity that his reign would be marked by a flood and a famine and a plague and a war? Did he have to be gone so much that his children would suffer as they did, that his health would be such a constant drag? Of course not. Nobody would plan for that. Nobody would choose most of the difficulties and troubles they face. The question, as we've said before, is how do you react when those difficulties and troubles happen anyway? I've been known to throw a tantrum.

Phoebe Bridger sings on our new album when things are not the way I imagine them. That's what many of us do. That's what Marcus Aurelius could have been excused for doing. He could have blamed others. He could have cursed the gods. He could have distracted himself with pleasure or delusions. Instead, he got to work. He did his best to rise and meet these challenges.

He did not take them personally. He did not try to make them somebody else's problem. He did not waste his time, as he said, delving into what lies beneath, investigating every cause or rabbit hole. Nor did he let his life be cruel. crushed by imagination as a whole, catastrophizing, dreading, worrying. Again, he got to work.

And that's how we should meet today and tomorrow when they do not go as we imagine. Practice love. The stoic notion of sympathya that we are all part of an organic whole connected by mutual interests and affinities is greater than the golden rule. Don't treat others how you would like to be treated.

Treat them like you would treat yourself. because we are all one. Seneca said that whenever he encountered another human being, he saw an opportunity for kindness. And he learned from Hakado of Rhodes that if you want to be loved, there's only one thing you can do, love others. Who can you give love to this week? What kindness can you expend? How can you show how you feel, the strangers to friends and family? And how can you show them that you actually believe we are all part of the same whole? And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly

and my co-writer and translator Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictita says, every day and night we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoic Journal anywhere, books are so long, You can also get a signed personalized copy from me

in the Daily Stoak Store at store.dailystoke.com. In the all is one chapter of stillness is the key. There's a quote I like from Seneca. He says, All that you behold, that which comprises both God and man is one, we are all part of one great body. And there's this quote I love from Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who was up in space looking down at the earth.

And he says that he felt an instant global consciousness a people orientation and intense dissatisfaction, the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. So this idea that we are all one, this sympathy idea to me, is the essence of Stoicism. Stoicism isn't to make you an island

to disconnect you from other people. Quite the contrary, as Seneca says, it's to make you kinder and more connected to other people. And Seneca, the three quotes we have today, one is Seneca quoting Hakato. He says, I can teach you a love potion made without any drugs, herbs, or special spell, if you would be loved, love. And then in the happy life, Seneca says,

a benefit should be kept like a buried treasure, only to be dug up in necessity. Nature bids us to do well by all. Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness. And then in moral letters 95, he says, nature produced us as a family, since we all sprang from the same source and towards the same end. Nature bestowed upon us a mutual love and joined us together. as friends. I think going out into nature looking at something majestic, or as Edgar Mitchell did, looking at the earth from a distance, it does give you this sense of our interconnectedness.

It makes a lot of the things that we get angry about feel very petty and small and insignificant. Being around your kids does this as well. You see just how sweet and innocent and pure they are, and it feels weird to carry anger or resentment about anything or anyone. But, One of the things I wanted to do in today's episode, I wanted to Riff, give you a little TikTok that we did that was popular. You might think that the Stoics are kind of these unfeeling people, and I get that, but it's actually not true at all. Seneca says, if you want love in your life, he says, then love. Marcus Surreali says that he learns from one of his mentors to be free of passions, yes, but full of love. Do you have affection for other people?

If you want to feel good, if you want to be loved by other people, it's about what you put out in the world. As the Beatles say, it's about the energy you put out in the world because ultimately that's what you control. If you want to feel better, don't go expecting other people to validate you, other people to give you what you want. Marcus Ria says, if you want to feel good, do good. If you want to feel loved, put love out in the world, put affection out in the world. See everyone you meet, as Seneca says, as an opportunity to practice kindness. And the rest will take care of itself, I promise. as the Beatles say, and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

What are you putting out in the world? What are you contributing to the whole, how are you remembering that we are all, you know, one finger on a large hand or that we're all part of the same body? The more you feel this, the more connected you are to it, not only will your anger and fear and resentment and anxiety dissipate, but you will do better. You will be better. you will make the world a better place. That's my message for today.

Go out and do a kindness. Go out and do something good. If you want to feel good, do good as the Stoics say. And I'll leave it there. Sympathia, everyone. We are all part of the same whole. 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.