The Daily Stoic - Who To Be Friends With?
Episode Date: April 12, 2022Ryan talks about the relationships that you should have.For a limited time, the ebook edition of Courage Is Calling by Ryan Holiday is only $1.99! We have no idea how long the discount will l...ast, so grab your copy now! Or if you prefer hardcover, you can get those over in the Daily Stoic store, where you can also get signed copies!Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow 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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Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life.
insight, wisdom necessary for living good 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.
Who to be friends with. Of the stoics, Sennaka seems like the one who had the most fun.
He's the one that it's easiest to picture spending time with friends or mingling at a dinner party. In fact, he was known
for his legendary parties with hundreds of guests. Whereas almost all of Marcus'
writings is private and solitary, and epictetus comes to us in the form of
lecture notes from his students, a sizable chunk of what survives of Sennaka are the letters he wrote to his friend, Lucilius. From all this we can
gather that Sennaka was social and had a large circle of friends and acquaintances
whom he spent a lot of time with. It begs the question, how did he choose these
friends? And who were they? We don't know much about Lucilius, for example, except
that he was the
governor of Sicily and possibly also a writer, nor do we know much about who the guests at
Seneca's parties were. But we can hope and expect that Seneca's many friendships adhered
to the rule he put down to Lucilius in one of those famous letters. Associate with those who will make a better man of you,
welcome those whom you yourself can improve.
That's what friendship is about.
A process of mutual improvement, benefit, and enjoyment.
We become like the people we spend the most time with,
so we should choose wisely,
and we should choose widely,
because life is too short to live lonely,
even for a stoic.
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