The Daily Stoic - Do The Little Thing, It’s All The Matters

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Ryan talks about why the small things are what matter most.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow 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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystowick.com. Do the little thing. It's all that matters. In the unbearable lightness of being, Theresa,

as the Prague Spring happens and the Soviets begin a military occupation, takes the time to rescue a crow that was hurt on the side of the road. Yet when dissidents come and ask Thomas, her husband, to sign a political petition he refuses, which prompts a rather interesting sentence in the book. It is much more important to dig a half-barried crow out of the ground that descend petitions to a president. A lot of people would reflexively disagree with that. Certainly, the actions of most people do.

Even though there is the saying that all politics are local, we tend to think big picture before we think little picture. Santa was the same way. Look at how he expressed his priorities in the essay on leisure. The duty of a man is to be useful to his fellow men if possible to be useful to many of them. Failing this, to be useful to a few, failing this, to be useful to his neighbors,

and failing them to be useful to himself. For when he helps others, he advances the general interests of mankind. It's ironic, Seneca's impact on trying to help as many of his fellow men as possible was what drove him into politics and eventually to Nero's court, where he probably hurt more than he helped. It was only after that failure that he retreated back

to his writing into small town life. But what if he'd switched that order? What if he'd focused on the suffering crow instead of petitioning the emperor? Might the world have been a better place? These are unanswerable questions, but they raise a provocative point that goes to the core of stoic thought. We should get our own house and order first before we try to tackle other people's problems. We should deal with what's in front of us, with how we can help those in our

neighborhood and our town before we try to change the world. Because if tragedy ever falls your family, cancer, unemployment, and debilitating accident, and untimely death, the world will not be there to take your kids to school so that you can make the doctor's appointment. The world is not who will leave casseroles on your doorstep or start a GoFundMe page. It will be your neighbors, your town, and you should do the same. Doing those small things won't change the whole world, but they will change somebody's world, and that is what matters. Please check out the Daily Stoke Store where we sell products that we ourselves use

that are designed to take these stoic lessons to the next level. Just go to DailyStoke.com slash store. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.