The Daily Stoic - This Timeless Adage Will Determine Your Destiny | Respect The Past, But Be Open To The Future

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

This is not another note about memento mori.It’s about a different immutable, inescapable law of human existence that comes to us from the Stoics through Heraclitus (one of Marcus Aurelius’ favorites): Character is fate.---And in today's excerpt from The Daily Stoic, Ryan explains why the Stoics believed it was so important to honor the past, but not to live in it.✉️ 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.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic. My book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, it will give you a quick meditation from the Stokes with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works. ...

In addition to that old adage about death and taxes, the Stokes believed that there was one other fact of existence that no one could escape from. It comes to us from Heraclitus, one of Marcus Aurelius' favorites, and it's an immutable reality of life and leadership. Character is fate, Determines our destiny. Just a quick glimpse around the world and it history confirms this is true. Liars and cheats eventually destroy themselves, the corrupt overreach, the ignorant make fatal self-inflicted mistakes, the egotistical ignore the warnings that could save them and data that challenges them. The selfish end up isolated and alone, even if they're surrounded by riches and fame. The robbers perverts, killers, and tyrants that markets a really as wrote about always end up in a hell of their own making.

It's a law as true as gravity. Bad character might drive someone into a position of leadership because of their ambition, because of their ruthlessness or their shamelessness, but eventually, inevitably, this supposed strength is in Achilles heel when it comes to actually doing the job.

Who trust them? Who actually wants to work with them? What kind of culture develops around them, how can they learn, how can they know where the landmines are. If you want to know why things are the way they are right now in business, in politics, everywhere, it's because character is fate. And for too long, we have ignored the predictive, no, prophetic power of character. When you make excuses for liars and cheats and egomaniacs because they agree with you because they might benefit your business

or your cause or your stock position or your political party in the short term, not only do you do so at your own long term peril, but you are exhibiting bad character yourself. And that is what will come back to bite you. That is what is biting us right now on all corners of the planet. Character is fate, always has been, always will be. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonder East Podcast Business Wars. And in our new season, two of the world's leading hotel brands, Hilton and Marriott, stare down family drama and financial disasters. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Respect the past, but be open to the future. This is today's entry August 25th, and it daily stow it. Won't you be walking in your predecessor's footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but if I find a shorter and smoother way, I'll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneer these paths aren't armasters, but are guides. Truth stands open to everyone, and it hasn't been monopolized.

That's Seneca's moral letters, 33. Traditions are often time-tested best practices for doing something. But remember that today's conservative ideas were once controversial cutting edge and innovative. That's why we can't be afraid to experiment with new ideas. In Seneca's case, he might be embracing some new philosophical insight that improves on the writings of Xenoarclientis. In our case, perhaps a breakthrough in psychology improves upon the writing of Seneca or Mark Cereleus. Or perhaps we have a breakthrough of our own. If these ideas are truer and better embrace them, use them.

You don't need to be a prisoner of a dead old man who stopped learning 2000 years ago. People often ask me, you know, what would the Stoics think about this or that? Would the Stoics go to therapy? Therapy being one I've talked about a lot of times. Of course they would. You have to understand that the Stoics are frozen in time in a way. By no fault of their own, right?

When I say that Seneca stopped learning 2000 years ago, Son is fault. I mean, he died, right? He didn't get to read Darwin. He didn't get to read Montaña. He didn't, he missed out on the enlightenment, right? He didn't get to read Darwin. He didn't get to read Montaigne. He didn't, he missed out on the enlightenment, right? He missed out on the Renaissance. He missed out on the industrial revolution. They missed out on everything, right? They missed out on the Declaration of Independence. They, they, they, they missed out on Lincoln. They missed out on Martin Luther King, right? They, they missed out on the suffragettes. They missed, they missed out on Sojourner Truth. They missed out on Lincoln. They missed out on Martin Luther King. They missed out on the suffragettes.

They missed out on sojourner truth. They missed out on people who made massive breakthroughs in how we think about things. Right? The Stokes talk about justice in the abstract and justice is a virtue and ideal. But then we've had innovations as a society, as we've gone along as to

what justice means, who deserves justice. Mark Seria's talks about how he learns about justice from Cato and Helvides and Thrasia. But clearly not enough, he still lived in slave society and did nothing about it. He would have benefited from, again, the Declaration of Independence, but he would have benefited from the abolitionists, right? He would have benefited from the advancements that happened after. There was a quote I like from Churchill. Again, not a perfect person who was wrong about so many things, but a friend and a colleague of Churchill said something about how Churchill venerated tradition

but hated convention. So I like this distinction between, you know, the timeless principles or ideals that we try to live by, that we try to orient ourselves around, and then just the kind of practices that are just there that we leave on question. I'll give you a good example at the core of stoicism. And I've talked about this before. Cato, the elder, the great, great grandfather of Cato, was there when stoicism was introduced to Rome from Greece.

I tell the story in lives of the stoics, but he's there, and here's these different philosophers debating philosophical ideas. Maybe he kind of liked stoicism, but would he heard from the other philosophers? He was like, nope, this is not good. I don't like this new stuff. And he tried to ban them from Rome. And you think about the irony that just a generation or two later, his grandson is a well-known philosopher and is known as a philosopher for thousands of years. Kato himself is conservative, has these ideas. He's a protector of the Mosque or the old ways. is a well-known philosopher and is known as a philosopher for thousands of years.

Kato himself is conservative, has these ideas, he's a protector of the mosme or the old ways, but the old ways are not actually one thing, they change, they evolve, they have to. I talk about this in discipline and destiny actually, which you can preorder now at dailystoke.com slash preorder now at dailystalk.com slash preorder. But there's a quote that Queen Elizabeth favors. It says, it's some Italian novelist who said, if things are going to stay the same, then things are going to have to change. Right? So yes, we venerate tradition, but we challenge convention.

And the Queen has done this over and over and over again. She's even the Beatles song, the Queen, the Queen, she changes from day to day. She evolves, she adapts. She inputs new information. And I think this is what Santa is saying, right? You respect the past, but you're open to the future. You're willing to question the past, where it's wrong. You're willing to adjust from what you inherited from the past to make a better future. And where would we be if this never happened, right? Not in a good place. So the Stoics understand that change is inevitable and in fact, try to be progressive, tried to change, tried to adjust. And again, I'm using conservative and progressive if you're not in

the American political sense, but the larger sense. You have to do this. Truth is open to all of us. The ones who pioneered your paths are not masters, but guides. Open to that change, accept it, look for new information. All that stuff ultimately supplements and improves upon this wonderful philosophy that we study. That's why I bring in new examples. That's why I try to read academic research. That's why I talk to experts, so I even vet it through my own experience. Do not feel that the still eggs are giving you doctrine or dogma, right?

They're giving you principles, principles matter. Principles should be venerated, but conventions, but the status quo, but the way we've always done things, the mosme or that that is to be challenged. It must be challenged. That's where I'll leave you today. Think about where stoicism is incomplete to you, where it should be adjusted, where it can be improved, what new things you're adding to it.

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