The Daily Stoic - Life is School. School Is For Life

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

“Late in his reign, a friend stopped Marcus Aurelius as he was leaving the palace, carrying a stack of books. Finding this to be a surprising sight, the man asked where Marcus was going. He... was off to attend a lecture on Stoicism, he said, for ‘learning is a good thing, even for one who is growing old. From Sextus the philosopher I shall learn what I do not yet know.’”Ryan explains why you must always be learning, and launches the new Stoicism 101 course, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life is a 14 day course designed to teach you what you do not yet know. It includes 14 custom emails delivered daily (over 20,000 words of all-new content, 5 live video sessions with bestselling author Ryan Holiday, printable 14 Day Calendar With custom daily illustrations to track progress, a group Slack channel for accountability and community sharing, and more! Sign ups begin today but close on Sunday, May 2 at 11:59 PM CST. The course will begin on May 3. Sign up now at dailystoic.com/101***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000 year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystowup.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target,
Starting point is 00:00:40 the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music music or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is school and school is life. Late in his reign, a friend stopped Marcus Aurelius as he was leaving the palace, carrying a stack of books. Finding this to be a surprising sight, the man asks where Marcus is going. He was off to attend a lecture on stoicism, he said, for learning is a good thing, even for one who is growing old. From sexist to philosopher, Marcus says, I shall learn that, which I do not yet know. It's incredible,
Starting point is 00:01:23 even as the most powerful man in the world, Marcus was still taking up his books and heading to class. In fact, sexist was only one of Marcus's philosophy teachers. In book one of meditations alone, he lists the names and what he learned from six other philosophy teachers, including one from arrival, and another rusticist who markets thanks specifically for introducing him to Epic Titus' lectures and loaning him a copy out of his own library. You cannot find a stoic philosopher or indeed any smart person who does not treat
Starting point is 00:01:59 their study of philosophy with this kind of lifelong seriousness. Zeno washes up in Athens and begins studying under crates, a well-known Athenian philosopher, then clientes studies under Zeno, not just for a few years, but for decades. And Cato was famous for his philosophical dinners, where he invited the smartest and wisest minds
Starting point is 00:02:22 of the ancient world to discuss the big philosophical questions he was struggling with. Even at his last meal before his famous suicide, he was debating the very implications of life and death, good and bad with philosophy teachers. Epic Titus was taught philosophy by Musoneus Rufus before becoming a teacher himself of both the emperor Hadrian, whom he instructed directly, and Marcus Aurelius, who he reached with his writings. Part of being a philosopher is being a lifelong learner. In life, school is never out for summer, and there is no spring or winter break. You can never be too old or too good at what you do.
Starting point is 00:03:03 No, school is life life and life is school. Learning is a daily thing, wisdom and endless pursuit. You never arrive, you never fill up, you never graduate. Because the world is always revealing new lessons even in the oldest of texts. Therefore, Seneca writes there is no one more foolish than one who stops learning. Even if you are one of the best at what you do, he says you should keep learning to the
Starting point is 00:03:31 end of your life. And he then points out one of the great things about learning. Why it is so special and unlike any other pursuit. It's something that we often overlook. Wisdom is one of the few things that you can count on in this life, in the sense that it's one of the few areas of growth or success that we have control over. Money, titles, influence, authority, power, admiration, fame, these are great, but for the most part, they're outside of our control. They're up to other people. Something can stop us from achieving them. But wisdom, learning, studying,
Starting point is 00:04:10 Seneca says this does not fall upon us by chance. How much progress shall I make?" he said, just as much as you try to make. So why do you wait? Wisdom comes haphazardly to no man. And that's why we created Stoicism 101 ancient philosophy for your actual life. This course Stoicism 101 is a 14-day course designed to cheat you what you do not yet know. Whether you're a beginner at Stoicism or you've been studying it for years,
Starting point is 00:04:45 there is something to be gained by getting up and going to school because learning, as Marcus really said, is a good thing. And as part of that, we're doing something we haven't done with our previous courses. Me, the author of The Daily Stoke, Lives of the Stoke, and the narrator of this podcast that I'm grateful you listen to,
Starting point is 00:05:02 I am gonna be the live instructor of this course in I'm grateful you listen to. I am going to be the live instructor of this course in five live video sessions, which we're calling office hours. You'll have the opportunity to learn for me to ask questions. It's not quite college, but it's better than reading by yourself. And I'm really looking forward to engaging with all of you. It's going to be 14 emails delivered over the two weeks almost 20,000 words of content and you're going to learn from the famous Stoics you're going to learn the things a stoic does the things a stoic doesn't do what sets stoicism apart from other philosophies the key components of a Stoics ideal day the stoics secret to success the stoic secrets to resilience the stoic secrets to productivity, the Stoic secrets to productivity, and how a Stoic masters their emotions, and a whole lot more. Look, the course is not free, but lectures are usually not free, but this course is far less than the
Starting point is 00:05:55 tuition of even one intro to philosophy class, even at your local community college to say nothing of what you'd pay to get this from the Ivy League. But look, as a participant in the Daily Stoic Stoicism 101, ancient philosophy for your actual life, you're going to learn all you need to know about Stoicism. You'll learn it from me, someone who's been thinking and writing about Stoicism for more than 15 years, who's had the opportunity to help people put it into practice everywhere from the NFL, to the special forces. You're going to be able to benefit from my synthesis of all this information over the years.
Starting point is 00:06:26 This is going to be a live course. All the participants will join the course together and move through together at the same time. Registration is now officially open. It will close on Sunday, May 2nd at 11.59 p.m. CST and the course will begin on May 3rd. This is different than our normal courses, but I'd really love to have you join us. Check it out. We think it's going to be one of our best. I hope to have you join me. Just go to dailystowic.com slash 101 that's dailystowic.com slash 101 or just click the link in the show notes and I'm excited to talk to you soon.
Starting point is 00:07:01 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.

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