The Daily Stoic - This Is Why You Can't Wait Until Late

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Today, Ryan reads from an email he received from his mentor Seth Roberts pioneering and peerless scientist. Seth collapsed of a fatal heart attack while hiking in Berkeley before Ryan could return his email, remaining us the power of intuition, the fragility of life, and the enduring impact of Memento Mori. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” as Ryan shares, Let’s make sure we reply to the email, we return the call, we tell those we love how we feel about them while we can.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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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And we have to do this a bad way. You have to. I don't. Bosch Legacy. Watch the new season now streaming exclusively on Freevy. Watch the new season now streaming exclusively on FreeV. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here recommend here at Daily Stoicoke and other long form wisdom that you can

chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it tooic podcast. As you know, on Sundays, usually we do like excerpts from the ancient Stoics, or sometimes we do talks that I've given or we do deep dives into certain topics. Well, today I wanted to tell a little bit of a story. I sent out articles once a week or so over on my website, RyanHoliday.net. I've been doing it for a long time. In October, we're doing the theme of Memento Mori. This is a piece I wrote a while ago but you know obviously pertains to Stoicism and it's something that I wanted to share with all of you because well I've been thinking about a lot. This is why you can't wait until later. At 6.45 pm on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014,

I got an email from my friend Seth Roberts, the pioneering and peerless scientist. I opened it and saw that it was the first of a long awaited column called Personal Science for the observer where I was then an editor. I assumed it was good, Seth's work always was. So I marked it as unread and told myself, could wait until Monday. On Saturday, less than 72 hours later, Seth collapsed of a fatal heart attack while

hiking in Berkeley. It would have been so easy for me to reply and tell him how happy I was with what he'd written or how much he'd helped me over the years or how excited I was to be working with him, how hard would it have been to give even the courtesy of acknowledging his email? But I didn't, and now I'll never be able to get to tell him anything ever again. This man who had mentored me, who had inspired me, who had made me rethink how I did so many things.

I had left him on hold, and now he was dead. Of course, I was familiar with the stoic concept of the Memento Mori. In Meditations, Mark Serely's writes that you could leave life right now. He says, you must let that determine what you do and say and think. I mean, of course, I know any of us could go at any moment. There is a difference between knowing something and knowing it. And there is nothing like losing someone you care about suddenly and unexpectedly to help

you understand how fragile an ephemeral life is. In an interview shortly after the death of the musician David Crosby, Crosby's bandmate Graham Nash talked about a falling out that they never got to resolve. He had sent me a voicemail saying that he wanted to talk to apologize, Nash said, and I emailed him back and said, okay, call me at 11 o'clock tomorrow, your time, which is two o'clock back on the East Coast. You never called and then he was gone. You think you can do it tomorrow, you think you have tomorrow, but you very well may not. The grudges we hold on to, the strange priorities we hold the nonsense we get bogged down in.

There's a kind of arrogance in that. It takes tomorrow for granted. This is the one thing all fools have in common, Seneca wrote there, always getting ready to live. They are always thinking that they have plenty of time. They are always saying that they'll be able to get to it later. They think that opportunities that people that life can be deferred to the future. They cannot. These things exist as Tolstoy wrote only in the present.

Procrastination is egotistical. It's entitlement embodied. I carried guilt about that with Seth for a long time. You can see the eulogy that I gave him was posted online. Tim Ferris gave another really good one. But it's taken me almost 10 years to even be able to write about it. Meditation on our mortality is not a productivity hack, it's much more than that. For me, I've tried to take from this experience a

relatively simple lesson. I tell people how I feel about them when I have the chance. I'm Rob Briden and welcome to my podcast, Brighton and. We are now in our third series. Among those still to come is some Michael Paling, the comedy duo Egg and Robbie Williams. The list goes on. So do sit back and enjoy Brighton and on Amazon Music, Wondery Plus or wherever you get your podcasts. It wasn't just Seth that taught me this.

I remember I was sitting in O-Hair Airport a couple years ago. I saw something on TV in passing that reminded me of my friend, Brett Barra. And I remember thinking, oh, I should message him. And then I got distracted and boarded my flight. And when I landed, I got a terrible bit of deja vu, more terrible news. He had died taking an afternoon now. If a friend pops into my head now,

I take it as a sign. You need to reach out. Don't do it later, don't leave him hanging, don't assume you'll get another chance. Take the one that's in front of you right now. Accept the gift that's in front of you right now, accept the gift that's in front of you right now. It is the present. It's very unlikely you'll regret it.

It may well be the last thing that you get to do. For instance, in the Daily Dad, which is out now, you can check that out. I tell the story of Bob Sagitt, the legendary comedian, the longtime host of America's Funniest Home Videos and Danny Tanner on Full House.

He gets this text from his daughter, as he's about to go on stage to perform standup. We don't know what she said, but it was an urgent. And he could have said to himself, I'll respond later, I'll call in the morning. Never want to consider it's our last chance. We tell ourselves that it's nothing, that there will be other phone calls, other texts, more good nights. But that's not always true. Sagitt took a second to send what neither of them could have known would be his last text.

Thank you, he wrote, love you, show time. Hours later, he was found dead tragically in his Orlando hotel room at age 65. No one knows what their last words will be. No one knows how much time they have. So let's use the time we have before we lose the time that we're never guaranteed. Let us make sure we tell people that we care about them. Let's make sure we reply to the email we return the call.

We tell those who we love how we feel about them while we can. And I'm not perfect at this. I make mistakes, but I do. Especially for the people I know who are older, grandparents, old friends, etc. mentors. I you know I just I try to never leave it hanging. It's shoot them a note. And I've gotten better. I think it you know it's for, it challenges you, it's challenged me to even just be a little bit more open with my feelings, right? Like, I think part of the reason we don't say these things is not just that we think we have forever,

it's just like a little awkward, we want to save it to later, like one awkward encounter. When we know it's the end or something, but you don't know. So putting yourself out there Telling someone you love them that you care about them. They're sorry that you were just thinking about them. Hey You know, I really liked this thing that you do. I just I just try to send more notes That's that's one of the lessons I took and I when I have opportunities to see people I try to you know Not make excuses to get out of them at the last minute because you know, I feel bad

If I blew them off and you know, that was the last chance. So that's the lesson today. That's what we're meditating here on this month and October, right? The Momentum-Mori theme of it. Putting aside the arrogance, the sense of invincibility, the sense of entitlement, the sense of lots and lots and lots more time, accepting the humility, the vulnerability, the openness, the acceptance of, you never know,

so you might as well use this time. Anyways, that's today's message. I do feel great debt to Seth. You know what, it struck me as I'm reading this when I look at that date. You know, the obstacles away came out like a month later. I don't know if he saw a galley of it or not. But I think he would have been proud and certainly I do try to make him proud and Brett Barrett. I know they told me later he was buried with one of my books, which was so meaningful and kind

of mind-blowing to me. So those were two guys. I didn't know them super well. We didn't spend a lot of time together, but the time we did spend together, it did have a big impact on me. Anyways, that's what Memento Mori is about. That's the reminder here I got. And the ring too. Anyways, Memento Mori, talk to you all soon. Thanks for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast.

Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in The Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The app goes the way. It goes the enemy, still in this is the key. The leather-bound edition. It goes the enemy. Still, this is the key. The leather bound addition of the daily stoke. We have them all in the daily stoke store, which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com. 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

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