The Daily Stoic - We’ve Always Done This | Balance The Books Of Life Daily

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

This is what it is to be a human. Some of it good, some of it better to resist. 📓 Check out Ryan Holiday's favorite journals:The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living by Ryan Holiday: https://store.dailystoic.com/One Line a Day (A Five-Year Memory Book): https://www.thepaintedporch.com/👉 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/🎥 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. world was very different from ours, obviously. They had different technology, they had different customs, different gods, different lifespans. And yet they were also tantalizingly similar to us,

just as the people in the distant past must have seemed tantalizingly similar to them. In meditations, Marcus Reelius observes that even in the bygone days of Vespasian or Trajan, people did the exact same things they were doing in his time. Marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power, he writes. What's remarkable is how people are doing the exact same thing in the modern world, too. And this list goes on. Things you did today, people did a thousand years ago, maybe even

5,000 years ago. They decided to take the scenic rope. They talked baby talk to their dog. They arrived late, anxiously. They stayed up late, reading or talking. They were short with their children. They gossiped about a mutual friend. They fretted about their parents. They got caught up in a project and forgot to eat lunch. They caught a vain look in the mirror.

They pinched fat on their belly. They got in an argument. They got a song stuck in their heads. This is what we do. This is what it means to be human. Some of it is good and some of it is better to resist. But it's the rhythm of life, the bleeding of eras one into the other. No change, just repetition, just foolishness and greatness, all side by side.

So the next time you feel exasperated, annoyed, joyful, or curious, remember, countless generations before you felt exactly the same way. And we are all participants in this ancient, eternal human dance. Different eras. Same steps. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance of 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 gone like that. But I do control how I respond, right? That's stochism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a bestselling author, 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 good. inside.com to catch the events. It's time for Black Friday.

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life's experiences, its insights, its frustrations, its unexpected struggles and triumphs and more. And in all of this, we are making a reckoning of our progress on life's way. Seneca, whose father-in-law was in charge of keeping the books on Rome's granary, like the metaphor of balancing life's books each day. Rather than postpone our impulse each day should be to bring things as much as possible to completion. Why? Because we never know what tomorrow might bring. Epictetus too would tell his students that the important thing was that they had begun, begun to practice, to learn, to get better. So give yourself some credit this week for the journey that you're on and reflect on how far you have come and how far you have left to go.

And we have three quotes, two from Seneca, one from Epictetus. Seneca says, Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day. Life's greatest flaw is that it is always imperfect, and a certain portion of it is postponed. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life,

each day is never short of time. And that's from Moral Letters 101. And then Seneca, and he's writing this to his father-in-law. He says, believe me, it's better to produce the balance sheet of your own life than of the grain market. He says this on the shortness of life. And then Epictetus says, I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained without shame, free, flourishing and happy, looking to God and things great and small, and your aim is to learn and diligently practice all of these things. Why then don't you complete the work? Do you have the right aim, and I have both the right aim and the right preparation?

What is missing? The work is quite feasible. It's the only thing in our power. Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me, and you will see. I was thinking about this idea of keeping life's books with the fact that I just finished my Daily Stoke Journal, and I know some of you have been on that path with me as well.

So as I cracked open a fresh one, that was pretty cool. And I'm about to finish my one line of day journal. So I've been doing it every day. And just to have that finished is like an incredible cool experience. And to think of the reflection that went into this. And so, you know, when we talk about journaling, it's not just a sort of a cathartic thing. it's not just a moment of stillness in the morning or the afternoon or whenever you happen to do it. To me, the power of it is that it is recording your progress as you go.

When I look at some of the things that I wrote five years ago, when I think about what I was going through five years ago, right? I am proud of myself for the work that I have been putting in on myself. There's a great line that's not in today's entry, but Epitita says, he says, some people delight in improving their farm. Me, I delight in my own improvement day to day. And I think that's what the journal is really capturing is that day-to-day improvement, that work that I've been putting in. And listening to this podcast is a little bit of work. Your journaling is a little bit of work. The reading you're doing is a little bit of work. The conversations you're having with a spouse or a friend

or in the Day of Silk Life group, that's a little bit of progress. And all of this, It might not seem like much as you're doing each individual thing. But as George Washington might say, many Mickles make a muckle, or as Zeno said, the well-being is realized by small steps, but it's not a small thing. And so as we chip away at this stuff as we make a little bit of progress, it might not feel like much today or in the moment. But cumulatively, it is adding up. It is taking you somewhere.

and that is not to be underrated. And yeah, when I did the journal, I didn't know how it would work. I didn't have this kind of daily journaling practice, like prompt-based. But it's been a wonderful addition to my routine. And I've heard from so many people who've had the same experience. And anyways, it's been wonderful. And I hope you can do more than just follow along with the podcast. But you can grab a version of it yourself.

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