The Daily Stoic - Keep Calm and Carry On

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

"Things are rough out there, it’s hard to argue with that. The stock market. Quarantines. Hospitals filled to capacity, and beyond. Travel plans cut short. Families cut off from loved ones. What is happening?! you might find yourself asking. This is terrifying, are things breaking down? Maybe. But it’s helpful to recall in times like these that, as the broadcaster Paul Harvey once explained, there have always been times like these."Every day, Ryan Holiday reads the Daily Stoic meditation for the day. To receive these via email, sign up at https://dailystoic.com/email/See 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 Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. 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. music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic. For each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, 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 dailystowach.com. Keep calm and carry on. Things are rough out there. It's hard to argue with that. The stock market, quarantines, hospitals filled to to the brink, travel plans, cut short families cut off from loved ones.

What is happening, you might find yourself asking, isn't this terrifying? Are things breaking down? Maybe. But it's helpful to recall in times like these, as the broadcaster Paul Harvey once explained, that there have always been times like these. Marcus Arelius lived through a pandemic. If you're old enough to read this, then you have already experienced at least one financial crisis.

You come from a long line of survivors, people who live through civil wars as well as civil unrest, people who survived quarantines and long separations, people who had their plans disrupted, people who woke up for days and days in a row, not knowing what the morning would bring or what kind of future that lay ahead, they survived. They survived the London Blitz. They survived the black plague.

They survived the Mongols and cold nights on the frontier. They survived without governments. They survived without electricity. They endured grief and fear and on the frontier. They survived without governments. They survived without electricity. They endured grief and fear and pain and change. They kept calm. They carried on. They learned, as Marcus did, that things can only ruin your life

if they ruin your character. That we might not control world events, but we can show how we respond. We can show whether we hold our heads high. We can show whether we help our neighbors, we can show whether we contribute to the panic or not, we can show whether we take care of ourselves and take precautions, we can show whether we live up to that eternal standard of courage, moderation, justice and wisdom. Yeah, it's tough out there, it's scary, but we're gonna be

okay. We're going to keep going and we're going to get through this. You know, I'm sitting here now and I'm holding my four virtues coin that are daily stoke one and I've been trying to think a lot about those ideas of courage and self-discipline and justice and wisdom because this is the moment for those things. And I think the reason we make these coins for Daily Stoke is precisely as a reminder of that as Marcus said, we should try not to exchange these virtues for others. So yeah, we've got all sorts of competing concerns. We've got our own safety. We've got our our job. We've got, you know, that trip we plan. We've got all these things. But let's make sure that what's coming first is that courage, caring about others, wisdom, self-discipline. Let's make sure we're being the people that this philosophy is is hoping for us to be. If you want to check out the coin, you can check it out

at dailystoic.com slash virtues. Be safe, guys. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic 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. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground

up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. you