The Daily Stoic - You Don’t Get To Do This Anymore | Don’t Look For The Third Thing

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations to himself, yet he only speaks positively of people he knows in those pages. This is the price of success, of a platform, of power—that is, responsibility.📓 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 daily stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient stoics, illustrated with stories from history, current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to on something to think on something to leave you with to

journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing so let's get into it You don't get to do this anymore. Of course, Seneca must have thought Nero was insane. Marcus Aurelius probably thought the same about Hadrian. They knew the flaws of these men, yet their position and tradition forbade them from simply saying what they thought. Seneca had a delicate balance he had to walk. Marcus Aurelius could not impugn Hadrian without undermining his own authority to rule, without undermining future emperors.

I don't think so, honey, the always amazing Tina Fey told current Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang recently. Giving your real opinions about movies on this podcast, she was saying, I regret to inform you that you are too famous now, sir. She was passing on a lesson that all professions eventually learn, that amateurs can afford to be flippant, professionals have to be much more disciplined. "'You're not an outsider anymore,' she was saying. "'Your words have weight and impact, and they can also close and open doors that might

be important.'" It becomes a thing, she was explaining, that, oh, do you want people to keep it real and have their podcasts forever, or do they want to be a movie star? She was saying that her trail of mistakes lives behind her like chains of shame. She wasn't telling her friends to be dishonest, but she was telling him to be considerate and circumspect when he opens his mouth. A random fan can trash a movie they don't like. An actor should not, nor can they, unless they want to needlessly hurt the feelings of everyone

involved in that movie. People they may well want to work with in the future. A citizen can pop off on Twitter. A journalist has to keep their opinions to themselves. They want to retain their credibility. A grunt can complain in wine. A leader cannot. A regular person might be able to get away with being rude or catty. A public figure cannot.

Marcus Aurelius wrote meditations to himself, and he must have understood that at some level he was not totally in private. Never be overheard complaining at court, he wrote as a reminder, not even to yourself. And that's why there's no gossip anywhere in meditations. Seneca must have understood that his letters to Lucilius might someday be seen by a public audience, so he could not disclose things that he had seen. Even Stockdale understood that his exchanges with his captors would have consequences for his fellow prisoners and his countrymen. They, like all leaders, like all well-connected people, had less freedom, not more, as a

result of their position. This is the price of success of a platform of power. That is responsibility. Honesty is still required, but discretion is too. Catharsis is something you've given up. Venting is for outsiders. Speaking off the cuff is off the table. You'll have to learn to keep some things to yourself now. You'll have to be disciplined, conscientious, deliberate.

You're too visible now. Too much. Dep depends on you. Don't look for the third thing. The Stoics teach us that doing well is its own reward. To do the right thing, to see someone helped by it, this is enough. To do the right thing, to see someone helped by it, this is enough. To go around expecting thanks, what Marcus Aurelius describes as the third thing, that is to miss the point. It's being greedy. Keeping score not only misses the purposes of being

good, it's foolish. It sets you up for disappointment. If you're going to do some accounting, look at it from the other direction. How many people have helped us? What do we owe them in return? Think about clearing some debts this week and consider forgetting any notion of others owing you. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoke Journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living, put together by myself and the wonderful Steve Hanselman You can buy this anywhere books are sold. I sell a bunch of signed copies

Personalize it usually write prepare and reflect in the Daily Stoke store You can buy that at store that daily stoke comm then we've got two quotes from Marcus to think about today One person on doing well by others immediately accounts the expected favor in return. Another is not so quick but still considers the person a debtor and knows the favor. A third kind of person acts as if not conscious of the deed, rather like a vine producing a cluster of grapes without making further demands, like a horse after its race, or a dog after its walk, or a bee after making its honey. Such a person having done a good deed won't go shouting from rooftops but simply moves

on to the next deed just like the vine produces another bunch of grapes in the right season. It's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 5.6. It's such a beautiful image. Like plants produce fruit. They don't even reap the benefits of that fruit. They just do it because it's the right thing. They just do it because that's their nature That's their job and then we have one more when you've done well and another has benefited by it

Why like a fool do you look for the third thing on top credit for the good deed or favor in return? That's marcus riles's meditations 773 Anytime marcus is repeating himself in in meditation I think it's illustrative and I think he is doing what we all do right? He did something good then he was disappointed that it either wasn't recognized or he was frustrated that it was Actually interpreted incorrectly or like imagine your marks to realize you're you're trying not to be corrupted by power you've seen what your horrible predecessors have done, and you're being attacked for it. He said the rewards of being a leader is to do good things and earn a bad reputation.

You still get attacked. And then not only that, you see, as we're seeing now politically, right, you see one side attempting to be bipartisan, and the other side not being bipartisan in fact taking advantage of even the impulse to be bipartisan right if you're going through life looking for this third thing and i do this all the time myself if you're going through life looking for that third thing you're going to be disappointed all the time and you're going to question why you were doing the good thing because if you're doing it in this quid pro quo one hand Washes the other you do a thing they do a thing you start to go

This is a sucker's payoff like I'm doing the right thing and I'm not getting anything for it I'm gonna stop doing the right thing No, the Stokes want you to think no the the right thing is your job You do the right thing because it produces pleasure for you You do the right thing because that's what you were put here on this planet to do you do the right thing because it's the right thing Everything else is extra. I've talked about this a bunch of times But it's just sort of like a top-of-mind example because I was just doing it this morning we pick up trash on this on this walk that we go on in the mornings and

You know, there was so much trash I think I was telling you this there's so much trash the other day that we had to get the mornings and you know, there was so much trash, I think I was telling you this, there's so much trash the other day that we had to get the ATV out and go out and pick it. We pick up this huge trash bag full of trash. And the next morning I go for a walk and you know, I somewhat expect okay, people threw some trash out of their car on the next day or whatever.

It's actually worse than that. Someone threw a fucking dead dog on the side of my road, right, so I can get upset by this, I can get disgusted by this, or I can just deal with it, right? I have given myself this job of keeping this thing clean because it gives me pleasure knowing I took this trash out of the environment. It's not clogging up river streams, it's not getting in, you know, any animals' bellies. I'm doing that because I think it's the right thing to do. I don't want to be thanked. I don't want credit for it. I don't need everyone to follow suit. I'm just gonna do it. I have to remind myself again, no one's on the same page as you.

There's still gonna be some crazy person discarding dead animal care. I don't even want to know why this is happening. It's insane. It's actually been a thing that's happened like since I've lived out in the country. I don't know if people, they can't be hitting them with their cars because like, I mean, you would just leave it there.

I don't know if there's a dog fighting ring out here or if it's a cultural thing. I don't, I don't, it's crazy. And so I just, I called a different neighbor and I said hey, can you get your tractor? Scoop this thing up dispose of it and we'll move on go about our days and Try to keep doing the right thing and not let the bastards bring us down Don't look for the third thing do the right thing because it's the right thing

That's this week's lesson and as we said in the little meditations Forgive the debts that others owe you and be very diligent about paying your debts to all the people who have selflessly done good things for you in this world over the years. I'm heading over to Australia in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna be in Sydney on July 31st. I'm gonna be in Melbourne on August 1st. I'm going to be in Melbourne on August

1st. Then in November, I'm doing Vancouver and 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 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? Have you ever heard of the term nuclear family? The term was coined by an anthropologist in the 1920s to describe the family structure of a straight married couple and their kids. Well now over a century later

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