The Daily Stoic - Freedom to Do What? | Protect Your Own Good

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

“Yesterday was July 4th, which as most of you know, is a day that marks the celebration of the declaration of independence for the newly formed United States. That idea of freedom is an important one and there’s no question that the founding of America was a step forward in the march for freedom across the world (though by no means a complete one).”Ryan asks you to reflect on what freedom means, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow 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 Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epictetus Markis, Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Freedom to do what? Yesterday was July 4th, which, as most of you know, is a day that marks the celebration of the Declaration of Independence for the newly formed United States. That idea of freedom is an important one,

and there's no question that the founding of America was a step forward in the march for freedom across the world, though by no means a complete one. But it's worth taking a minute today, the day after the festivities and celebrations to reflect freedom to do what? Independence from what? We live in a time of unprecedented prosperity. Old constraints, religious, social, political have broken down, mostly for the better. Yet so many people are miserable, so many people are imprisoned in lives of excess, meaninglessness

and stress. We struggle with the tension between what we can do and what we should do. This is, in fact, a timeless struggle. Anyone who has read Thomas Rick's wonderful book, First Principles, or to listen to my great interview with him here on the Daily's Dogue podcast, you know that the philosophically inspired founders believed very deeply that liberty from the state was always intended to be checked by private virtue. What stoicism is, properly understood, is a voluntary system of self-restraint,

a framework for unsolicited courage, self-directed education, and uncoerced commitment to treat others well. And this is most necessary in a society where one has the choice to do otherwise. James Stockdale spoke, movinglyly of the flip side of all the freedoms we have in this modern world. He said it's that we're still our brothers keeper. Eisenhower for his part tried to remember that freedom was really just the opportunity for self-discipline. Marcus Aurelius could do whatever he wanted. He could have been Neuro tibiarious or Hadrian, instead he chose to be good. He chose to care about other people.

He chose moderation. He chose wisdom. He chose justice. It was a deeply courageous thing to do. Protect your own good. Musoneus Rufus, one of Epicetus' teachers, taught that human beings are all born with an innate goodness,

whereas he put it with an inclination to virtue. It's our choices that decide whether that goodness comes out or not. We're not bad people, essentially, though we might sometimes do bad things. The purpose of Stoicism then is to remind us of that goodness and to help us work hard to protect it.

So spend some time this week writing about the choices you can make, the actions you can take to do just that. And this is from the Daily Stoke Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of journaling, on the art of living, which I use myself every morning. I love the little prompts. Here is Epictetus's discourses who, as you know, Epictetus was Misonius Rufus' student.

Protect your own good and all that you do. And as concerns, everything else, take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it. If you don't, you'll be unlucky, prone to failure, hindered, and stymied that that's discourses for three. And then Marx realizes meditations, Marx then influenced by epictetus. Musonius teaches stosism to epictetus,

whose writings then survive and make their way to Marx's reliance. Marx's reliance, as it happens, is introduced to stosism through Juni's rusticist, who loans him his copy of Epipetitis. Dig deep within yourself, Marcus writes in Meditation 759, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow, you will keep digging.

I guess what the stochists are doing here is really pushing back on this notion of original sin that were toxic, broken, horrible people, that human nature is something to be feared. You know, there is a darkness in us, but there's also incredible good. And I think the still folks are talking about what side of you are you going to nurture? What side is going to come out? What side are you going to look for? What side are you going to reveal?

And Musonius and Epicetus and and Marcus are all tested in incredible ways. Musoneus is exiled three times, perhaps four. Epicetus, you know, experiences the incredible injustice of slavery. Marcus Relius is given absolute power. And as they say, power reveals, but I think also adversity reveals. And in both Musoneus and Epictetus's case, adversity revealed a goodness, an unbreakable goodness, a commitment, a tenacity, a perseverance, an unswerving belief in these principles that we're talking about now. And in Marcus Aure you know, he wasn't challenged the same way, although life did challenge him with loss and grief and pain and sickness, but it also

challenged him with a great bounty of good fortune, and that too tested his character, it tested whether there really was goodness inside of him and what side of him he was going to reveal. So as you go out into the world this week, think about who you really are underneath. Think about what kind of character you've been cultivating. Let's show people who we are and who we can be and what we actually believe as Marcus says, let's not waste time arguing, what a good man should be. Let's be one.

Let's be the best we can for ourselves, for our family, for our world and I'll talk to you soon. Those four virtues courage, justice, temperance, wisdom, those are the checks, the balances I try to keep in my own life. I carry this four virtues coin in my pocket, which you can check out store.dailystilloc.com, but those four virtues, remember, you're free to do whatever you want, mostly whatever you want. But the system, the virtues, the code you live by has to tell you what you should do, not just what you can do.

So check that out, talk soon. So check that out, happy 4 Fourth of July. Talk soon. free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.