The Daily Stoic - We Have To Do This For Each Other | Reboot The Real Work

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

While we can't stop the fires or undo the damage, we can do what the Stoics taught us. Offer the kind of help we hope to receive should we ever need it. Donate to the LA Regional Food Bank here: https://www.lafoodbank.org/📔 Pick up your own leather bound signed edition of The Daily Stoic! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/🎙️ 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. When I travel with my family, I almost always stay in an Airbnb. I want my kids to have their own room. I want my wife and I to have a little privacy. You know, maybe we'll cook or at the very least we'll use a refrigerator. Sometimes I'm bringing my in-laws around with me or I need an extra room just to write in. Airbnbs give you the flavor of actually being in the place you are. I feel like I've lived in all these places that I've stayed for a week or two or even a night or two. There's flexibility in size and location. When you're searching you can

look at guest favorites or even find like historical or really coolest things. It's my choice when we're traveling as a family. Some of my favorite memories are in Airbnb's we've stayed at. I've recorded episodes of a podcast in Airbnb. I've written books. One of the very first Airbnbs I ever stayed in was in Santa Barbara, California, while I was finishing up what was my first book,

Trust Me I'm Lying. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. 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 Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from

me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words in to works. We have to do this for each other. In ancient Rome, as in our modern world, crises were a constant. Wars erupted, earthquakes struck, pandemics spread. Fortune, Seneca said, behaves capriciously. It has always been thus. And it is from Seneca that we hear of a devastating fire that raised the city of Leon just as the great fire of Rome had burned through the capital just a year earlier. They had sent aid to Rome. He noted in now, Rome was returning the favor.

This is how it goes. One day a disaster strikes someone else, the next day it could strike us. In fact, in another bit of writing, Seneca notes that this was actually what we should remind ourselves when we see doctors or undertakers carrying away one of our sick neighbors. We could be next. Of course, the lesson here is more than just be aware. It is also make sure you are generously offering the kind of help you may one day need and hope to receive. Since we started Daily Stoic back in 2016,

we've been telling this story about these two cities. We told it after Hurricane Harvey. We told it during the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down the world. We told it just a few months ago after Hurricane Helene. Together, we've helped thousands of people all over the world recover from natural disasters and unimaginable catastrophes. And as you know, one of the worst fires in American history has ripped through Los Angeles. It's not idle speculation that many people who read this email alongside

you each morning have lost their homes. And I mean that seriously, at least two different guests on the Daily Stoke podcast came back to their homes to find they'd been burned to the ground with everything they owned inside them. And this destruction isn't just physical. These wildfires have left people grappling with the loss of cherished memories, the disruption of their lives and careers,

and the daunting task of starting over. grappling with the loss of cherished memories, the disruption of their lives and careers, and the daunting task of starting over. Some of the hardest-hit areas include LA's most affluent neighborhoods, whose residents many assume can afford to weather any storm. But this is flawed logic, insinuating that some deserve to lose their home more than others. More importantly, these neighborhoods also supported the livelihood of countless others, housekeepers and landskeepers, child care providers, maintenance workers, local businesses, all of whom now face uncertainty as their communities have been reduced to ash.

And this is what Seneca meant about the capriciousness of fortune. Today's disaster is theirs, but tomorrow it could just as easily be ours. And while we can't stop the fires or undo the damage, we can do what the Stoics taught us, offer the kind of help we hope to receive should we ever need it. Just like the Romans who came to the aid of a neighboring city after its devastating fire, now it is our turn to act with generosity and compassion. Let us meet this moment not with judgment or indifference, but with the same solidarity we deserve." And you know, I was thinking about this,

I was working on this email as I went for a run yesterday in Houston and I ran over this sort of Bayou little stream and I was thinking, yeah, not that long ago, this whole thing was flooding huge chunks of this city. And that this happens over and over and over again, and it's only going to keep happening. And so our sort of go-to here, like in my household and with Daily Stoic is to think about food banks,

to help people who are so affected by these crises that they're unsure of how they're gonna be able to feed their family. We did a big food drive with Feeding America during Cyber Monday and Black Friday. And the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank is one organization working to provide essential food and nutrition assistance to those impacted

by the wildfires and beyond. You can donate now at lafoodbank.org or you can just Google around and find any charity supporting people in the area. So that's today's message. I hope you can help. I'm going now myself to make a donation to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and I hope you do the same. Hey, it's Ryan. and I hope you do the same.

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. Today we are reading from the Daily Stoic. I am not literally holding it in my hands because I am in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, which where I will be for the next few minutes before I run downstairs and catch a car, go to the airport, and I'll be in San Diego. So I had my producer send me today's entry.

This is January 17th, Reboot the Real Work. And our quote today comes from Epictetus's Discourses. I am your teacher and you are learning in my school, he says. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unstrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy, looking to God and things great to small. Your aim is to learn and diligently practice

all of these things. Why then don't you complete this work? If you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and the right preparation, what is missing? The work is quite feasible and is the only thing in our power that go with the past. We must only begin. Believe in me and you will see. Do you remember school or early in your life being afraid to try something because you feared you might fail at it? Most teenagers try to fool around

rather than exert themselves. Half-hearted and lazy effort gives them a ready-made excuse. It doesn't matter. I wasn't even trying. As we get older, failure is not so inconsequential anymore. What's at stake is not some arbitrary grade or an intramural sports trophy, but the quality of your life,

your ability to deal with the world around you. Don't let that intimidate you though. You have the best teachers in the world, the wisest philosophers who ever lived. And not only are you capable, the professor is asking for something very simple. Just begin the work. The rest follows.

You know, I'm thinking a couple of things here. So one, just so you note, Epictetus' discourses come to us from the lecture notes of one of his students, a man named Arian. Marcus Aurelius reads a copy of these notes given to him by his philosophy teacher, Roustikis, who probably studied under Epictetus as well. So Epictetus doesn't write a book,

we get these sort of excerpts of either questions he was asking or lectures he was giving his many students. It's just an interesting insight into who Epictetus was and how he was talking. But you know, I was thinking about this entry, which I would have written back in 2015. And I realized it was largely inspired by something that Robert Greene writes about in, I think, the 40 laws of power, but maybe the 33 strategies of war. I wrote this down many years

ago. It's one of my favorite passages he ever wrote. And I was like, where's that quote? Because I don't have the book on me. I was like, where can I grab it? Then he goes, oh yeah, I read that quote out when I gave my first talk at the Naval Academy as part of this lecture I've been doing on the Four Virtues series.

So I pulled this up. This is a talk I gave back in April 22 as part of my lecture on the four virtue series. Anyways, this is a quote from Armacrene, which I think is worth sharing today. He says, teenagers will often strike a pose that is simultaneously rebellious and lackadaisical. It is a way of staying in place.

Trying harder brings more risk of failure, which they cannot handle, so they lower their expectations. Finding nobility in slacking off and mediocrity. Losing hurts less when you embrace it." And I tied that to this famous story about Jimmy Carter when he was being interviewed by Admiral Rickover, both graduates from the Naval Academy, where he asks Carter how he did at the Naval Academy and Carter tells him his class rank. And Rickover says, yeah, but did you always do your best? And Carter has to answer honestly that he didn't always do your best.

And I was sort of talking to them about how there've been times in my life, especially when I was their age, that I did precisely this. I was afraid to try, afraid to put myself out there, afraid to really do my best. Because if you do your best, you really go for it, you earnestly put yourself out there, then if it doesn't work, you have to own that failure.

You have to, it says something about you, not as a person, but it certainly says something about your abilities, right? Or your abilities in that moment. And so I think we do this in a lot of ways. We know we could practice these ideas better. We know there's more we could do. So why don't we? Why do we hold ourselves back?

Anyways, that's kind of the lesson there. But again, I find it so fascinating. Epictetus wasn't just this philosopher. He was a teacher, like a great teacher that you might've had, one that called you forward, called out the best in yourself, that challenged you in a way that I wish some of my teachers had. I certainly think of my teachers had.

I certainly think of Ms. Carrs and Mr. Del Orto, two teachers who did get the best out of me, whose influence shapes me even to this day, and how I wish I'd had more teachers like that. I wish I'd had a Rickover in my life. I wish I'd had an Epictetus in my life. But ultimately, who is in my life, right, is the Stoics. And that's why we are lucky, and that's what the in my life, right? Is the Stoics. And that's why we are lucky

and that's what the entry concludes with, right? We have the best teachers in the world, the wisest philosophers who ever lived. We have meditations, we have discourses, we have Seneca's essays, we have his letters. We have their example also. We must begin, we must believe in them and then we will see.

All right, I'm gonna to go catch my flight. You guys have a great day. That's today's message. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey. New year, new resolutions. And this year on the best idea yet podcast, we're revealing the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed

with. And we promise you have never heard these before. Ever wonder how the iconic Reese's peanut butter cup was invented? Because it was by accident. H.B. Reese, a former frog salesman, true story, stumbled upon the idea after accidentally burning a batch of peanuts. Classic. Proving that sometimes our best ideas arise from what seem like our biggest mistakes. And Jack, did you know there's a scientific explanation why humans crave that surprising combo of peanut butter and chocolate? I didn't, but it sounds delicious. It is delicious. So if you're looking to get inspired and creative this year, tune into the best idea yet. You can find us on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're looking for more podcasts to help you start this year off right, check

out New Year New Mindset on the Wondery app. Who knows? Your next great idea could be an accident that you burned. This is Nick. And this is Jack. And we'll see you on the best idea yet.