The Daily Stoic - What Is It For If Not This? | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

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For more, visit DailyStstoic.com. What is it for, if not for this? Right Thing Right Now came out a little less than a year ago. I've said before, it's one of the books that made me better for having written it. And I just went through this whole thing with the Naval Academy where I really had to put those ideas in practice.

I wrote today's message before all the stuff at the Naval Academy happened. But I've said before that right thing right now is a book that however it did and it's done well, the most important thing was it made me better as a person for having written it. And I really drew on the ideas that I wrote about in that book and the people I got to study

and really feel a kinship with. So it's fitting that it is 299 as an ebook right now. I'll link to that in today's show notes. The experience, the relationships, the money, the credentials, the accolades, the influence. We spend a lifetime accumulating these things. Painstakingly, we acquired them. The name of security and the name of independence

and the name of freedom. And what do we do with this power, with this capital once we have it, with this freedom and independence? Sadly, too little. Seneca had it. Did he use it to stop Nero? No, he did not.

Cicero watched Rome tear itself into civil war Really? Too little. Seneca had it. Did he use it to stop Nero? No, he did not. Cicero watched Rome tear itself into civil war while he sat mostly on the sidelines, waiting to see how it would play out. Columbia University has a $14 billion endowment, a safety net, and a war chest it was given by its donors and alumni to protect its future and its sacred academic independence. But when a hostile administration threatened to cancel a $400 million federal contract, a fraction of its budget, the school immediately folded.

And this is all sad, but before we judge too harshly, we should ask, are we really that much better? We're afraid to take career risks as if we haven't been saving for precisely this kind of situation. We got a degree so we'd have something to fall back on, but we don't want to risk falling. We're afraid to speak out.

We're afraid to cross this person or that one. We're waiting until we're more secure, even though that's what we told ourselves the last time and the time before that. There is never a right time to be courageous, except, you know, all the time, except right now. You will never be secure enough, powerful enough that you won't be afraid.

That's the whole point of courage, by the way, triumphing over the fear, doing the scary and hard thing anyway. If you're not gonna be brave now, then when? What was the money for? The reputation, the position? If not to stand for something, if not to use it, then what was the point of earning it at all?

And as I said, I have not been perfect at this. There have been moments when I said, okay, I can't do it right now, I gotta do it later, when I'm more secure, if I go to the mattresses on this, I won't be able to do it again in the future. And those decisions haven't aged well. And that's why, you know, making the wrong decision, a lot of times in my life, it made it clear for me

with this thing with the Naval Academy, where they wanted me to remove some slides and then the decision not to be quiet about it, right? It's from precisely ideas like this. And part of the reason I write the Daily Stoic is not for you, it is for me. And in writing them over and over again, puts me in a position where I have to get better

at living them. That's the idea, that's what Stoicism is about. Like I said, you can grab right thing right now as an ebook for 2.99, or I will sign your hardcover if you like, just grab that at store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to all this in the show notes. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Thursday episode

of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I don't think Stoic philosophy is supposed to be this thing that you do in isolation. I think it's supposed to be conversation, right? This is the people gathering at the Painted Porch, the Stoic Pochelia in ancient Athens, these people stopping by the Painted Porch. Now it's when I get to go do my talks

and then get to answer people's questions. It's one of my favorite things to do. I had a nice break this year. My sort of talk stopped at the beginning of December and then they didn't start until mid January. So I got a bunch of weeks off, got to spend a lot of time with the family. But then I was back in Houston

where I gave a talk to this group called US Law Shield. They do like sort of emergency insurance for gun owners. They do it for all sorts of kind of emergency situations. Now they've sort of extended the offering they do. I've talked to the group a couple of times and they've been having me there. They do these, they call them their BAM, their big ass meetings.

It's actually an interesting group. Maybe I don't agree with them politically on everything, but look, I'm a hunter, I'm a gun owner. I'm always interested in engaging with people. And that's what we did. I went out there and gave a talk and then the group got to ask me some questions and I'm gonna bring you some of those questions here now.

So here's me talking to some folks in Houston. Mr. Holliday. Yes. So do you have ways that we could translate those ideas to these younger generations that get zero exposure to these topics? Yeah, you know, it's funny, Latin isn't exactly a language anyone needs these days. But one of the byproducts in how people used to be taught Latin is that you would be taught

Latin by reciting epigrams from these ancient thinkers. And so as we kind of took Greek or Latin out of schools, as we took the classics from any people out of schools, people sort of lost their familiarity with these ideas. There's a great book called First Principles by Tom Ricks and another one called The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen. And both books look at the founding fathers

and the education that they got and how steeped it was in these classical virtues. And I think we're missing that these days and that's a huge problem. You know, we sort of decry politicians violating norms or not respecting this or that. And largely the public is indifferent because they don't understand what these norms are rooted in,

why they matter, the sort of great moments that they elicited from people. And I think that's a huge problem. So I'm trying to sort of steep my kids in these ideas, whether it's through fables, whether it's through art, literature, stories, and then of course, I think ultimately we have to, we have to model them ourselves.

Washington, his two heroes were Cincinnati's, a Roman general, and Cato, a Roman politician. We talked about Cato. People don't understand that he learns about the myth of Cincinnatiato, a Roman politician. We talked about Cato. People don't understand that he learns about the myth of Cincinnati as a young man, Cincinnati being this Roman general who when Rome is invaded is made dictator. And he, given this enormous power, saves Rome

and then immediately lays down that power and returns to his farm. This being also somewhat the plot of Gladiator. But the Cincinnati's probably didn't exist historically. And if you were to learn about Cincinnati's today, I think teachers would take pains to let you know how not true the story is, right? But what Washington was taught,

whether it was true or not, accurate or not, Washington absorbed the virtue and the essence of the story of Cincinnati's. And this is why he resigns his commission after the Revolutionary War, and then why he resigns the presidency after two terms. He's modeling himself on Cincinnati's. To bring this home though, I mentioned Hamilton earlier.

My eight year old is obsessed with the Hamilton soundtrack and he listens to it every day. On the car ride to school this morning, he was asking me about this very thing as we're listening to the song where King George is singing about how he hears that Washington is gonna lay down his power and return to his farm.

And we were talking about the specific line in Hamilton that King George sings where he goes, I didn't know that was a thing a person could do. And the point is, we have to draw on these great stories from history and literature to teach our kids about the possibilities, good and bad, that humans are capable of. The greatness of when we made sort of right,

selfless decisions like Washington did, and then the not so great decisions that, maybe some people think is, it's woke to criticize or to hold up these things, but no, we wanna look at the good and the bad of these historical figures. So our kids have a sense of the possibilities, good and bad, and they're steeped in these values

and these stories. So then in their decisions, big and small in life, they have this store of knowledge to draw on. How do you address something that's important? Right, because there's a lot of different things that are important and not every decision can be right. Because the right decision may have negative impacts. Yeah, sure.

Loyalty is a great example of this. You go, well, I'm loyal to my boss. But you also have loyalty to your family or to your career, let's say. Or you have loyalties to a cause or a principle, right? And so we don't just have one singular loyalty. We have these potentially conflicting loyalties. Yeah, it's tough.

When we say do the right thing, what do we mean exactly? I wish I could be like, here's the prescription for doing the right thing always. Do this, don't do this. Even the Ten Commandments, right? That shall not kill. Seems pretty clear, but we got a lot of exceptions to that rule.

Obviously you guys being defenders of people who have had to sometimes make exceptions to that rule. So, like, I don't wanna make these things simple, and at the same time, I think one of the problems with justice, or what they would call virtue ethics in academia, is kind of slice and dice and debate these issues until we remove any kind of urgency or clarity from them

and then it just becomes impossible to know what's right. This is one of the problems with the study of history is we look at, it's like, well everyone was awful always. What are we supposed to take from that? So it's tough, well everyone was awful always, what are we supposed to take from that? So it's tough, but at some basic level it kind of boils down to the golden rule. And I think there's probably a good reason that almost all the philosophical

and religious traditions formulate some version of that, thinking well, what would the world look like if everyone in my position did what I'm about to do, or didn't do what I'm about to do. And so it's thinking about how the consequences of what we're gonna do matter to other people. I think it's a good place to start as we're thinking about, hey, what's important here? What's right here?

As opposed to some of the blinders we put on where we think, well, what's better for the bottom line? What's standard practice here? What am I going to be able to get away with? But we think, well, hey, what's the impact of what I'm about to do or not do as a place to start, I think. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast.

I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. 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. 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. Thinking about the misfortunes your small business could suffer doesn't seem very Zen, but meditate on this for a moment.

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