The Daily Stoic - This is What To Do With Joy
Episode Date: August 14, 2024It’s because life is unpredictable, it’s because nothing is certain that we must find joy and happiness where we can.🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets for London, Rotterdam..., Dublin, Vancouver, and Toronto at ryanholiday.net/tour✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow 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.
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Daily Stoic early and ad free right now.
Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcast. and wisdom, everyday 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 dailystoic.com.
This is what to do with joy. We tend not to see the Stoics as happy people. Marcus Aurelius' meditations is dark, his critics say.
Even a fan would concede it's not the lightest fair.
Epictetus spoke of the brutality of existence often,
mostly because as a slave he knew it well.
Seneca, for his part, spoke so much about death,
there's literally a modern collection of his writings
titled How to Die.
It's actually quite good by the way.
So where was the room for happiness,
for joy, for sucking the marrow out of life?
Paradoxically, it was right there in that dark stuff,
or rather it was a product of that dark stuff.
In one of his consolation essays,
Seneca, who himself lost a child
and was exiled in the same short period,
writes to Marcia that she must snatch
the pleasures that your children bring, let your children in turn find delight in you.
He says, drain joy to the dregs without delay.
No promise has been given you for this night.
Nay I have offered too long a respite, he says.
No promise has been given even for this hour.
It's because life is unpredictable.
It's because nothing is certain
that we must find joy and happiness where we can.
Enjoy our children, do things that are fun,
drink deeply from this moment that you're in.
Because while you're in it,
it's about the only certain thing there is. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad-free
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