The Daily Stoic - You Have To Be Ready | Stake Your Claim

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

“In his 91st Letter, Seneca tells Lucilius about his friend Liberalis who is “in some distress at the present moment following the news of the complete destruction of Lyons by fire.” It was a terrible, savage tragedy that calls to mind the images we see on the news all over the world on a day-to-day basis.”Ryan explains the importance of being prepared and seizing the present moment, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is brought to you by Trends. Trends is the ultimate online community for entrepreneurs and business aficionados who want to know the latest news about business trends and analysis. It features articles from the most knowledgeable people, interviews with movers and shakers, and a private community of like-minded people with whom you can discuss the latest insights from Trends. Visit trends.co/stoic to start your two-week trial for just one dollar.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the 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 meditate 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 have to be ready. In his 91st letter, Seneca tells Lucilius about his friend, Liberales, who is in some distress at the present moment following the news of the complete destruction of the city of lions by fire. It was a terrible savage tragedy that caused to mind the images we see on the news all over

the world day to day. In our recent interview with Anthony Long, one of the most respected philosophers at one of the most important universities in the world. He talked about why Senaqa was writing this letter to his friend. It wasn't a panachim with thoughts of natural catastrophes. It wasn't to say, wow, did you hear what happened? Can you believe it? What a tragedy were all doomed.

No, in describing these catastrophes long told us Senaqa, like other ancient stoics, totally belied the modern image of the unconcerned stoic. describing these catastrophes long told us Seneca, like other ancient Stoics, totally belied the modern image of the unconcerned Stoic. He said, ancient Stoicism was actually a philosophy of action. It did not teach resignation much less apathy, but realistic acceptance of human vulnerability and making the best of oneself in one situation in all circumstances. Good and bad alike. Writing about the devastating fire of lions, Seneca fully acknowledges the horror of the event. His advice for the future is to cultivate readiness for anything, letting nothing

catch you completely unprepared, acknowledging the suddenness and unpredictability of change. Think about how the US stock market went from boom to bust in a few days. Taking a comprehensive view of human history, think of the rise in fall of empires. Recognizing that the rumor mill always exaggerates that fortune is no respecter of status or success or wealth. As he says sharply but accurately, born unequal we die equal. Another helpful tactic long says is to concentrate on the present nearly pining hopes on the future nor regretting the past, but recognizing that we are fully

alive and effective only in the present fleeting moments. As we grapple now with the kind of foe that the Romans were well familiar with, a global pandemic, we would do well to think of this example. Our job as philosophers is to be prepared. We must never, as Seneca said, find yourself in the shameful position of saying, I did not think it could happen. We can't do what so many world leaders did as COVID-19 was beginning its exponential spread and look to our neighbors suffering and think, I'll be spared, I will be skipped. No, we have to be aware. We have to be prepared, we have to care. The fate of one is the fate of all.

We are all vulnerable and our ignorance only makes us more so. And we must seize and drink in the present while we can. Don't let the mob distract you. Don't take people for granted. Do what you can right now before it's too late. State your claim. We like to collect the sayings of great writers or of leaders we admire. They often become mantras for us on the path to life, providing guidance and assurance.

But Ascentechah reminds us truth has not been monopolized. We should spend some time and effort each week formulating our own wisdom, staking our own claims based on our study, practice, and training. That's what this is all about, right? Reflecting on the stoic wisdom and adding our own to it, Senica urged us to blaze our own trail and to take charge and to stake our own claim. Well, let's do it. Let's use the pages in a journal on a blog,

whatever medium we have to reflect on insights you have learned from your own experiences. Let the inspiration you've taken from the Stokes create your own exercises, reminders, and perspectives. For it's disgraceful for an old person or one insight of old age to only have knowledge carried in their notebooks, Zeno said this, what do you say? Clienthese said this, what do you say? How long will you be compelled by the claims of another? Take charge and state your own claim, something posterity will carry in its notebook.

That's Seneca Moral Letters 33. Won't you be walking in your predecessors 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 have pioneered these paths aren't our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone. It hasn't been monopolized. Seneca, moral letters, 33.

Don't act grudgingly selfishly without due diligence. Or be a contrarian. Don't overdress your thoughts and fine language. Don't be a person of too many words or too many deeds. Be cheerful, not wanting outside help help or the relief others might bring. A person needs to stand on their own, not be propped up. Marcus Arellius' meditations, three, five. There's a great line. I remember when I was just starting out as a writer, I was written an article for the college newspaper and I sent it to someone and I got some notes back and he said

You know, it was filled with all these quotes right quotes from stuff. I like, you know Books I liked you know all the stuff and he said Ironically in the quotation. He said Emerson said I hate quotations tell me what you know And that's something again ironically I ended up using in the Daily Stoke But the point being this isn't just about memorizing and recitation. It's also about creating your own insights. It's from bringing all these ancient sources in and creating some sort of synthesis, right? It's a little tricky for me.

I mean, I write about stoicism. And so obviously I draw on the stokes. I feel like it'd be pretentious and weird if I was acting as if I'd somehow discovered all this stuff. But I do feel like even in, even take a book like Daily Stoke, right? Daily Stoke is a page a day, a stoke philosophy, and then each one is a story often, you know, sort of that I found somewhere else. But all that brought together creates something that doesn't exist. And in fact, I was actually surprised that no one had ever done this before, but that format, that medium, that book is an original book,

and yet it's from a collection of other things, but it's from that that we create new stuff, right? And that's what we're trying to do as Stokes. Meditations is filled with quotes from that Mark's Realist is gathered, and yet it's also filled with startling new insights. And so I don't, it would be sad to me if listening to this podcast, you know, reading the books, studying the Stokes, if it didn't lead to any creation yourself, right?

There shouldn't just be a passive experience. That would be very sad and very unfortunate, right? Stoicism is an ongoing conversation. We're moving the ball forward, keeping the torch lit. We're carrying it forward. And we have to do that by not just applying it on our own, I spent applying it on our own writing and our own creativity. What can you do? What original work can come out of what you're studying and learning. Maybe that's, you know, greatness in the moment, something you do. Maybe it's something you write to a friend in a form of a letter, a senate commissioner. Maybe you do your own book about stoicism or your own

podcast or your own YouTube series or maybe you're a visual artist or I don't know. The point is what can you do? What new stuff can you do? And like I don't fancy myself as having created all sorts of stunning original work. I don't think that's my role, but that's not what I get excited about. I see myself as a synthesizer and organizer, but in doing that, I feel like I've done something original. Even the memento Morricone, I mean that was an idea I had. I remember walking through an airport and going, maybe cool. There's a way, you just carry this around.

And I remember challenge coins. I put all those together. And now that's a thing, right? What are you adding to the world? And that's what that mentor of mine was trying to say. Your work can't just be you reciting stuff that you heard somewhere else. And that's something I struggle with even in my own writing. It's like, it's always safer to quote,

you can hide behind that, right? But you have to stake your claim, if to stand up and go, this is what I think. This is what's important to me. That I think that's what Marcus was saying. A person needs to stand on their own, not be propped up. But I, and so that's part of it. And then, and so he's saying, a person needs to stand on their own, not be propped up. But I, and so that's part of it. And then, and so he's saying, like, look, you can't coast. But I also think Santa is saying truth stands open to everyone. It hasn't been monopolized. The Stoics were

writing 2000 years ago. Think of, think of all the historical events that have happened since then, that have shaped and changed and added color to their ideas. Think of all the breakthroughs we've had scientifically, medically, psychologically. We know so much more. So there's so much new ground left to break. So many new things to say, so many new fields to explore, things to do. That's what stoicism is about. I very much do not see this as a dead philosophy. It's an active philosophy, and it's one that you yourself can add to just as as Marcus did and every stoke before him. And again, it's the thing, you know, Marcus was writing 500 plus years after Zeno lived. And so yes, it feels like a long time ago that the stokes wrote a long time ago that maybe this is an active but but that's how it would have felt a

Marcus too and so I urge you today to get active add something to this deeds not words but also you know there clearly I think words are powerful too so add something don't just recite don't just memorize add something new it's not that we hate quotations but something new. It's not that we hate quotations, but quotations can't be an excuse for us telling what we know, for us speaking our truth, for us saying what we have to say. That's what art, creativity, business, commerce, life is all about, so go out there, get to it. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It's incredible to think that these episodes have been listened to more than three million times. If you could do this to a huge favor and just leave a quick review of the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or whatever you're listening to

this on, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews help with visibility and help bring stosism to even more people. Thanks again. Talk soon. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon Talk soon. break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one,

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