The Daily Stoic - We Really Screwed This Up, Didn’t We? | A Week Without Complaining

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

We need to make the virtues commonplace again—they are, as Marcus Aurelius said, “touchstones of goodness.” And we must start with the only thing we control: Our own decisions, motivations and actions.📚 Learn how to live with virtue by reading the Stoic Virtues series by Ryan Holiday:Book 1: Courage is Calling | https://store.dailystoic.com/Book 2: Discipline is Destiny | https://store.dailystoic.com/Book 3: Right Thing, Right Now | https://store.dailystoic.com/📓 Pick up a signed edition of The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on The Art of Living: https://store.dailystoic.com/🎟 Ryan Holiday is going on tour! Grab tickets 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.

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 podcasts. I've been writing books for a long time now and one of the things I've noticed is how every year, every book that I do, I'm just here in New York putting right thing right now out. What a bigger percentage of my audience is listening to them in audiobooks, specifically on Audible. I've had people had me sign their phones, sign their phone case because they're like I've listened to all your audiobooks here and my sons they love audiobooks we've been doing it in the car to get them off their screens because audible helps your imagination soar. It helps you

read efficiently, find time to read when maybe you can't have a physical book in front of you and then it also lets you discover new kinds of books, re-listen to books you've already read from exciting new narrators. You can explore bestsellers, new releases. My new book is up, plus thousands of included audio books and originals, all with an Audible membership.

You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audio book for free. You'll get right thing right now, totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. for free, visit audible you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. We really screwed this up, didn't we? It wasn't always this way. People used to say it and mean it.

People didn't just want to be seen as having it. They built their lives around it. People aspired to it. It was, as Cicero said, the summum bonum, the highest good. But today virtue means self-righteousness. As the great Thomas Merton writes, what a fate the word virtue has had in the last 300 years. The fact that it is nowhere near so despised and ridiculed in Latin countries is a testimony to the fact that it suffered mostly from the mangling it underwent the hands of the Calvinists and

the Puritans. In our own days, the word leaves on the lips of cynical high school children a kind of flippant smear, he said, and it is exploited in theaters for the possibilities it offers for lewd and cheesy sarcasm. Everyone makes fun of virtue, which now has as its primary meaning an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent. If only he could have anticipated the way that virtue signaling would become not just commonplace but that it would also become a pejorative for phonies and earnestly committed people alike. The Stoics would be so disappointed. Virtue was to them a way of life. It wasn't something you

talked about. It was something you did. Aristotle said we acquire the virtues the same way we acquire any skill. A carpenter builds, a flutist plays, a runner runs. Courage, discipline, justice, wisdom, as I say, and courage is calling and discipline is destiny and right thing right now. These are nouns, not verbs.

And there's really only one way to restore virtue to its proper place, by living with it, by modeling it, by making it something worth aspiring to again, as opposed to something that only hypocrites or Puritans talk about. We need to make the virtues commonplace again. They are, as Marcus Relius said, touchstones of goodness.

And if you ever find anything better than them in life, he said, that must be an extraordinary thing indeed. Action by action, we must claw our way back from these unvirtuous, cynical times. And we must start with the only thing that we control, our decisions, our motivations, and our action. And of course, this is what I'm trying to do on the Virtue series.

I'm trying to make that accessible. If you haven't read Courage is Calling, Discipline is Destiny, or the new book, Right Thing, Right Now, well, maybe check one out. I don't know which one strikes you, which one is the best one to start with. I'm proud of all of them. Right Thing, Right Now is the newest.

It debuted in number one on the New York Times Bestseller list, but Discipline is Destiny is my fastest selling book ever, that's pretty incredible. to start with, I'm proud of all of them. Right Thing Right Now is the newest. It debuted at number one on the New York Times Festival List. Discipline is Destiny is my fastest selling book ever. That's pretty incredible. And then Courage is Calling is one I'm very, very proud of. Also, you can grab all those at store.dailystoke.com or swing by the painted porch and grab them. Or if you want the audio book, you can grab that on Audible.

Anyways, be well everyone. And if you can, be virtuous. A week without complaining. Epictetus spoke often to his students about the need to give up blaming and complaining. In fact, he saw it as one of the primary measuring sticks of progress in the art of living. How much of life is wasted pointed fingers? Has complaining ever solved a single problem? Marcus Aurelius would say, blame yourself or no one. This week, try constructive feedback over complaining and responsibility over blame. And if something goes wrong, spend some time reflecting on what the true causes were. Don't waste a minute with

complaints in your journal or out loud. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing on Reflection and the Art of Living by me, Ryan Holiday, and my co-author, Stephen Hanselman. You can get this anywhere books are sold, although we also have signed copies in the Daily Stoic Store and of course, at my bookstore, The Painted Ports here in Bastrop, Texas. But we have three quotes from Epictetus today about complaints. He says, you must stop blaming God and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice.

You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy, or regret." That's the Discourses 322. "'For nothing outside my reasoned choice,' he says, can hinder or harm it. My reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God I swear we would be making progress. That's Discourses 319. And then he also says in in Coridion 1 3, but if you deem as your own only what is yours and what belongs to others is truly not yours,

then no one will ever be able to coerce or stop you and you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will and you will have no enemy and no one will harm you because no harm Can affect you it's funny. Just as I was sitting here. I was thinking to myself Man, it's so hot. It's hot in my office. I have to turn off the AC when I record But one of my favorite quotes from Marcus realist about complaining which I actually also have in sort of fictionalized in the boy Who would be king he says don't be heard complaining at court about complaining, which I actually also have in sort of fictionalized in The Boy Who Would Be King, he says, don't be heard complaining at court, not even to yourself. There are so many parts of Marks-Rhealis' job that we get the sense that he didn't really like. He's kind of an introverted

person. He's a good person. He wants to do what's right. He's not an ambitious person in the sense he doesn't want to dominate or win or everything. And so it must have been so frustrating to be around these obnoxious, annoying, dishonest people, these professional politicians basically. But he catches himself. He's like, it's not even enough not to complain publicly. And of course, everyone would have

indulged his complaints, he's emperor. But he says, don't even complain in your own mind. And that is some higher level shit right there, isn't it? To not only be able to stop yourself from complaining, I think it was Will Bowen, he had the no complaint challenge. Every time you say a complaint, you have to move the bracelet from one wrist to the other. And the idea is, can you leave it on one wrist for 30 days? Can you get it in one spot for 30 days? No complaints.

But imagine how most of us would fail if even thinking about a complaint, not even verbalizing it disqualified us. But that's the challenge of the stoics. And I think Epictetus though is more honest when he talks about just progress. The less blame, the less complaining, the more responsibility you're taking, the more constructive you are. That's what matters.

Are you making a little bit of progress every day? Are you moving forward? Are you complaining less, right? I think that's a fair way to think about it. So I thought the complaint, but I didn't say it. That's progress. But maybe next time I can just go, the temperature is what the temperature is.

If I wanna do this thing, that's what I have to put up with. So that's what it is. Thinking about it doesn't help me. It doesn't make me any cooler, right? It just makes me frustrated. And that's why we try not to complain. So don't be heard complaining today, not even to yourself.

That's the standard we're ascribing to. But could we just make some progress? We just blame only ourselves or ideally no one. That's progress. Let's do it. Let's work for it. Let's make ourselves a little bit stronger as a result I'm heading over to Australia in a couple weeks. I'm gonna be in Sydney on July 31st I'm gonna be in Melbourne on August 1st, then in November. I'm doing Vancouver in Toronto, London, Dublin, Rotterdam

All awesome cities. I'm really excited to go to if you want to come to those talks They're open to the public and you can grab those tickets at ryanholiday.net slash tour. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast, American Scandal. We bring to life some

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