The Daily Stoic - We Are All Trying This | Train To Let Go Of What's Not Yours

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Seneca wasn’t perfect. He struggled, as all humans do, with inconsistencies between his philosophy and his actions. So, why should we listen to him?👉 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/📘 Grab the hardcover edition of The Daily Stoic here: https://store.dailystoic.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.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 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. wasn't perfect. He struggled, as all humans do, with inconsistencies between his philosophy and his actions. He was ungodly wealthy, and, you know, he worked for Nero. So why should we listen to him?

Why did Lucilius, his friend and correspondent, take his advice seriously? As it happened, the two had an exchange about this very issue. Seneca quotes Lucilius writing to him asking, how is it that you are advising me? Have you already advised yourself? Have you gotten yourself? Straightened out? And Seneca replies, I am not such a hypocrite as to offer cures when I am sick myself. No, he says, I am lying in the same ward, as it were, conversing with you about our common ailment and sharing remedies. So listen to me as if I were talking to myself. I am letting you into my private room, giving myself instructions while you are standing by. Seneca wasn't writing from a sage-like place of superiority. No, he was writing as a fellow traveler, someone in the trenches of life,

wrestling with the same struggles as everyone else. C.S. Lewis said he wrote for the same reasons. He said, I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. The fellow pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain as one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained. This is the essence of Seneca's letters, Marcus's meditations, and Epictetus's discourses. It's also how I hope you read and listen to what I talk about in daily Stoic.

None of us are all-knowing experts looking down from a pedestal. No, we like the ancient Stoics, our fellow students, half a step ahead walking the same path, trying our best to learn and grow together. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker, they had a snow cone, and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far. far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stuicism, but it's also what Dr.

Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a bestselling author, and she found a good inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q&A events for good inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since.

On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And Daily Stoic listeners can join for 15% off with code Stoic 15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

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We've got a nice big passage from Epictetus's discourses today. Whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don't treat it like a part of yourself. but as a breakable glass. So when it falls, you will remember that and won't be troubled. So, too, whenever you kiss your child or sibling or friend, don't layer on top of that the experience of all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who might ride behind triumphant generals remind them that they are mortal.

In the same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn't one of your possessions. Just something given for now, but not forever. That's Epictetus's Discourse, is 324. As it happens, actually, at a Roman triumph, the majority of the public would have their eyes glued to the victorious general at the front, one of the most coveted spots during Roman times. Only a few would notice the aid in the back,

right behind the commander whispering into his ear, remember thou art mortal. What a reminder to hear at the peak of glory in victory. In our own lives, we can train to be that whisper. When there is something we prize or something that we love, We can whisper to ourselves that it is fragile and mortal and not truly ours. No matter how strong or invincible something feels, it never is. We must remind ourselves that it can break, can die, can leave us.

Loss is one of our deepest fears. Ignorance in pretending don't make things better or stronger. They just mean the loss will be all the more jarring when it occurs. There's a Zen story about a guy who has a beautiful cup, and he says to himself over and over and over again, the cup is already broken, the cup is already broken, the cup is already broken. And then, of course, when it does break, he's not surprised.

I think this is what Epictetus is saying on a couple of levels. One is just reminding yourself that when you're triumphant, when you're successful, when you're at the top of the world, it never lasts, right? Seneca being a profound example of this, top of the world, exiled, top of the world, exiled, top of the world, exiled, top of the world, executed, right? This is how it goes.

It doesn't last. It never does. You run, the bestseller list, in my case, eventually it comes to an end. Your time in the NFL comes to an end. Your time selling real estate in the bull market, it comes to an end. It always does. Your youth comes to an end, right? All things come to an end.

And so realizing that this is just this thing given to you for now, and you should enjoy it and be present for it and appreciate it, but never lose sight of the fact that it is already broken, it is already gone, it's already in the process of of leaving or falling apart. Entropy is working on it in this very moment. Now, the next part of this, the harder part, it's realizing that this isn't just true for status or accomplishment or momentum or whatever, or possessions, but also for people.

Professor Scott Galloway told me this, and I've written about it before, but he was talking about how you're constantly losing your kids, right? They're a four-year-old for one day, then they're four-year-olds in one day. As they are getting older, losing who they were, right? They were a baby for so long, a toddler for so long, preteen for so long, a teenager for so long, in your house for so long. And most tragically,

as Marcus Aurelius feels almost incomprehensibly, you don't get them forever at all, right? Just as they don't get you forever at all. And we have to remind ourselves, as Epictetus says, that our precious one is not a possession. They are a gift that we have temporarily, ephemorily, that we are losing not just day to day, but also permanently all at once as well, hopefully in a long time, but we cannot say that for certain. And so to take them for granted, to feel entitled to them, to mistreat them, this is a profound sacrilege. And we have to avoid that. And one of the ways we do it is by reminding ourselves of that ephemorality. We have to do this.

We have to do it regularly. We have to do it consistently. We have to do it as a practice. We have to say to ourselves, remember, thou art mortal. We have to say to ourselves, the cup is already broken. It's already gone. You have it now, but not forever. Loss is a real fear because it's painful.

Grief accompanies it and so many other painful things accompany it. But it is there. and no amount of wishing otherwise makes it not the case, right? No amount of accomplishment or achievement makes you less mortal. You are mortal. You always have been. And so is everyone and everything you've ever been connected to. So let's live and act and treat people accordingly.

And let's do it before it's too late. Hey, it's Ryan. thank you for 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 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

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