Seneca had money and privilege. Lots of it.Yet where did it get him?It didn’t save him from illness, or spare him from years of convalescence. Does this mean there is no advantage to having money? No. Nor does it imply that not having money is better than having it (Seneca would deem money a ‘preferred indifferent’—better to have than not have).--- In one of the best passages in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, Marcus tells himself to stop hoping and “be his own savior while he can.” It’s great advice — advice we should follow this year.And we do that by starting with some foundational habits and mindset shifts. Today, Ryan outlines some of the best ways that you can have better habits in 2023.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️  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.

This is that weird time of year where we start to think about how we want the following year to go. We start thinking about what we call “resolutions”—the promises we make to ourselves about what we’re going to do in the next 12 months. The habits we’re going to quit, the skills we’re going to learn, the standards we’re going to hold ourselves to.Here you are today, staring down the barrel of 2023. And while the best time to demand the best for and of yourself was years ago, the second best time is right now.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️ 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.

Back in October, Ryan presented the first of four audiobook excerpts from Steven Pressfield’s “Turning Pro.” In this excerpt Steven talks about identifying and battling the habits and addictions that hold us back, the fears of the amateur, the simplicity of life once one turns pro, and his own story of turning pro. Published by Recorded Books on Brilliance Audio.📕 Grab a copy of “Turning Pro” at the Painted Porch Bookshop and on Audible✉️  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.

Ryan speaks with Tyler Shultz about his new audiobook Thicker than Water, the harsh realities of being a whistleblower, how he overcame the fear of backlash from his decision to expose Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’s motivation, and more.Tyler Shultz is an entrepreneur and author whose work focuses on driving innovation in healthcare. He graduated from Stanford with a Biology degree and entered the national scene when he blew the whistle at Theranos by exposing the company’s dubious blood-testing practices activities to the public health regulators in New York and the Wall Street Journal. He is featured in Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary The Inventor. Tyler is the CEO and Co-Founder of Flux Biosciences, Inc. His efforts were recognized by Forbes when he was named to their “30 under 30” Health Care 2017 list. Tyler can be found on twitter as @TylerShutz_.✉️  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.

The Cynic philosopher Diogenes was once criticized by a passerby for not taking care of himself in his old age, for being too active when he should have been taking it easy and resting. As per usual, Diogenes had the perfect rejoinder: "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal?"---Ryan speaks at the EO Alchemy entrepreneurial conference about his early career and his view on interpreting the Stoics.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️  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.

Dwight Eisenhower gave himself the order.Quit smoking.It had been a 38-year habit, and he knew it was time. His health was on the line. His ability to be of service was in jeopardy. So he quit. After 38 years of smoking, he quit—cold turkey.“The only way to stop is to stop,” Eisenhower would tell an aide, “and I stopped.”🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️  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.

Marcus Aurelius wasn’t magically Marcus Aurelius. Cato wasn’t born that way. All their virtues–their assiduous self-control, their patient wisdom, their commitment to justice, their courage at critical moments–this didn’t just happen. It wasn’t a biological freak event.It was the result of hard work.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️  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.

Ryan speaks with former pro basketball player Cuttino Mobley about the challenges of adjusting to life after basketball, growing up with Kobe Bryant and Rasheed Wallace, why pursuing greatness is not for everyone, how Cuttino approaches parenting as a single father, and more.Cuttino Mobley, a.k.a. “Cat”,  is an entrepreneur, podcast host, and former American professional basketball player who played in the NBA from 1998 to 2008 for the Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento Kings (Ryan’s favorite team). He announced his retirement in 2008 due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Following his retirement, Cuttino was named the recipient of the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association “Native Son” Award. Since 2017, he has competed as co-captain of Power in the Big3 3-on-3 retired NBA players and prospects league. In his podcast, Dad’s Point of View, Cuttino discusses the journey of Fatherhood with sports, entertainment, and media personalities.✉️  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.

The Stoics were not afraid of joy, but they found joy in a different place than most people. It wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t accumulating money. “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse,” Epictetus liked to say, “so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.”---Excellence isn’t this thing you do one time. It’s a way of living. It’s foundational. It’s like an operating system and the code this system operates on is habit.🎓 Sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge to create better habits in 2023: https://dailystoic.com/challenge✉️ 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.

It’s easy to look at history and despair. Humans have been terrible to each other–going back to Marcus Aurelius’s time all the way through today. In fact, sometimes it feels like that’s all we’ve ever been.The writer Mary Karr once asked a religious friend, “How can you believe in God, you know, when there was a Holocaust?” The friend had a reply that stopped her cold: “But you’re not in the Holocaust.”✉️  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.

It is amazing that Meditations, year after year and read after read, feels both incredibly timely and incredibly timeless (there’s a reason the book has endured now for almost twenty centuries). It’s amazing that a person so famous—known to millions in his own lifetime and subject to countless books and articles and movies—could still be giving off new secrets, but indeed that’s what he’s doing.Today, we examine 18 things you didn’t know that shaped the life of that person, Marcus Aurelius.📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations. To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: 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.

Ryan speaks with snowboarder Jeremy Jones about his new book The Art of Shralpanism: Lessons from the Mountains, why having discipline on the mountain saves lives, the relationship between courage and fear when approaching the dangers of snowboarding, and more.Jeremy Jones is an American professional snowboarder,businessman, author and filmmaker. He is the founder of Jones Snowboards and the co-founder of Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit that works to reduce the effects of climate change. In 2012, Jeremy was picked by National Geographic as one of the Adventurer’s of the Year. You can find Jeremy’s work, including his books and the films that he makes about his snowboarding adventures (a childhood favorite of Ryan’s), on his website: www.jonessnowboards.com, and on Instagram and Twitter @jeremyjones.✉️ 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.

It would be nice to be a comedian, wouldn’t it? Not because it might make you rich and famous, though that would be nice. But rather, for the opportunity it would afford to turn all the things that bother you in life into material.Talk about the obstacle being the way! Comedians get to use everything that happens to them in their life, in their work. Heartbreak. Frustration. Fear. Insecurity. Confusion. It all becomes material.---In today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about living on a farm, and how farm life relates to Stoicism.✉️  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, including The Obstacle is the Way pendant.📱 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.

When one thinks of a philosopher, they usually picture something like an ancient figure in a toga, or they think of a college professor in a tweed jacket. They don’t think of an athlete. They don’t think muscles, right? They think brains, not brawn.But in the ancient world philosophers were warriors, athletes, hunters, boxers, wrestlers, and distance runners. They did hard things. They pushed their physical limitations.---In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan examines Marcus Aurelius' Meditation 7.69, and why the Stoics didn't believe that striving for perfection should be our primary goal in life.---You can reserve your spot right now in the 2023 Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge, at daily stoic.com/challenge.To check out Discipline is Destiny and other books, visit thepaintedporch.com ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: 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.

A new year is fast approaching, and it's that time of year in which some people will try again and some people won't.Which will it be? Who will you be?For those of you ready for a change, we are back again with our fifth year of the New Year, New you Challenge. You can reserve your spot right now in the 2023 Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge, at daily stoic.com/challenge.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: 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.

Ryan speaks with authors Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski about their new book When You Wonder, You're Learning: Mister Rogers' Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids, how hard Mr. Rogers worked to be who he was, how we can strive to “make goodness attractive”, and more.Gregg Behr is a father, writer, children’s advocate, author, and Executive Director of the Grable Foundation. For more than a decade, he has helped to lead Remake Learning – a network of educators, scientists, artists, and makers he founded in 2007 – to international renown. His work has been applauded by President Obama, the Center for Digital Education, the Tribeca Disruptor Awards, and his hometown, Allegheny County. You can learn more at www.greggbehr.com.Ryan Rydzewski is a teacher, writer, speaker, and member of the Grable Foundation. He writes books, feature stories, speeches, blog posts, and creative pieces that have appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. His clients include Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania, The Pittsburgh Foundation, the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, NEXTpittsburgh, Kidsburgh, and ASSET STEM Education. You can learn more at www.ryanrydzewski.com.✉️  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.

The causes of things are complicated, and rarely do they go how we’d like them to go. So it’s easy to point the finger— at other people, at unfair conditions, at the weather, at the advice we got. If it hadn’t been for _______, I’d have won. Why did so-and-so have to get involved like that? It’s all _______’s fault.And yet, the causes of things are also quite simple, at least according to the Stoics. Because to them, the fault always lies with us.---It is the only thing you have. Don’t waste it. Seize it. Live it. Ryan outlines some of the tips the Stoics used used to make the most of their time. Meditate on them. Come back to them often. But most importantly, apply them.Check out the Tempus Fugit medallion to help remind yourself why you manage your time.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: 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.

Marcus Aurelius loved history and he loved literature. He loved reading about the courts of past emperors. He loved the plays of the great Romans and their poems. He loved the lectures of Epictetus, which had been given to him by his teacher Rusticus.Sometimes, as he pored over these pages, a thought struck him. Where are they now?✉️  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.

Which is more effective: theories or practice? Should kings study philosophy? These are the questions that Musonius Rufus examines in the second half of his lesser known Stoic fragments, read today as part two of our Musonius Rufus reading series. You can listen to part one here: https://wondery.com/shows/the-daily-stoic/episode/11074-musonius-rufus-stoic-fragments-pt-1/ Check out “That One Should Disdain Hardships” at the Painted Porch.✉️  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.

Ryan speaks with professor of moral philosophy, author, and activist Peter Singer about the 10th anniversary edition of his book The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty, how Peter’s views on charitable giving have changed throughout the years, the connections between Effective Altruism and Stoicism, applying ethical philosophy to issues in our daily lives, and more.Peter is an Australian professor of moral philosophy who specializes in applied ethics. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and the founder of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University. He is the author of numerous books and essays focusing on ethics, bioethics, global poverty, and animal rights, including The Most Good You Can Do, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," and Animal Liberation. Peter is most known for developing and promoting Effective Altruism, the argument that effective giving involves balancing empathy with reason. In 2021, he won the esteemed Berggruen Prize for his work in the field of philosophy, and was awarded one million dollars, all of which he donated to charity.✉️  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.

There was a message there in the mirror this morning. Did you see it? It must have been a strange experience for Marcus Arelius the first time he saw it…waking up, looking at his reflection, and noticing his hair turning gray. Feeling his body creak. Looking at the crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the wild hairs jutting this way and that in his eyebrows. Even for someone who had so actively practiced and meditated on the idea of memento mori, it would have been a rather vivid reminder to him that he was getting older, that each day a little more life left him, never to return.✉️  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.

It would be wonderful if the Stoics promised you some sort of breakthrough. One that solved for the messy divorce or the unfortunate bankruptcy. One that helped you rehab from the car accident or magically deal with a pandemic that drags on for years (as Marcus knew well). One that soothes you as you sit up sleep-deprived with an infant. The Stoics do, actually, offer solutions for these kinds of struggles. They just don’t come as the kind of breakthrough or insight that you’re necessarily looking for.✉️  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.

You don’t know that someone acted wrongly or that they totally screwed a situation up, because you don’t know the full story. You don’t know their reasons or their side of things. And what do the Stoics tell us to do when we don’t have all the facts about something?They tell us to suspend judgment.✉️  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.

Ryan speaks with historian of Rome Josiah Osgood about his new book Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic, the complicated legacy of Cato, how Caesar and Cato’s relationship can help inform our daily lives, and more.Josiah Osgood is Professor of Classics at Georgetown University. His teaching and research cover many areas of Roman history and Latin literature, with a special focus on the fall of the Roman Republic. Josiah’s interest in the fall of the Roman empire began in high school Latin class, where he read Cicero’s speeches against Catiline. He found Cicero’s rhetoric so powerful that he became enthralled by Roman politics and has been studying the subject compulsively for twenty years since. He is the author of several books, including Caesar's Legacy, Turia: A Roman Woman’s Civil War, and How to be a Bad Emperor.Listen to Josiah and Ryan’s previous conversation from 05/11/22 here: https://dailystoic.com/josiah-osgood/ Check out Rome’s Last Citizen by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni.✉️ 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.

A night spent at the airport. A prison sentence. A two week bout with COVID. The crazy rush of the busiest season of the year for your business. We know we’re in for it. We dread it. We curse our fate.Actually, we should take a page from the great performance artist Marina Abramović, which she shares in her incredible book Walk Through Walls: A Memoir. She was known for her artistic feats of strength—whether it was days in a chair staring at strangers or inviting her audience to use 72 objects on her in any manner they please. In the middle of a project that would test both her and her partner Ulay emotionally and physically, Abramović once encouraged him, “we are not having a good or bad experience. We are having an experience in a period of 16 days. Whatever comes—good or bad—we are 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.

As summer now passes into fall and all too quickly fall turns to winter, it is worth stopping and thinking for a second. Where did that time go? Not long ago you were watching fireworks and enjoying the light late into the evening. Now, suddenly, you’re in sweaters, looking at your lawn covered in leaves, wondering why it’s so dark and the evening news hasn’t even finished.✉️  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.

Nobody wrote about the “good life” more beautifully than Horace (65-8 BCE). In numerous writings, the Roman poet shared his wisdom on how to use virtue as a key to unlocking contentment and, therefore, happiness in our daily lives. Today, Ryan presents a selection of Horace’s ideas in the second half of the “The Search For the Good Life” chapter in the How to Be Content installment of Princeton University Press’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, translated by Stephen Harrison.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with one of the great non-fiction writers and historians of our time, Adam Hochschild, about his classic 1986 memoir Half The Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son, the impetus for his latest book American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, and the process that Adam went through to improve his relationship with his father, and more. Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian, and lecturer. He has written 11 books, including the highly regarded and influential King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains. He has written for the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. He has received many awards for his writing, including the Duff Cooper Prize and the Mark Lynton History Award for King Leopold’s Ghost, and the California Book Awards Gold Medal and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History for Bury the Chains. Adam graduated from Harvard in 1963, and he holds honorary degrees from Curry College and the University of St. Andrews.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

It doesn't matter who you are, the facts are the same. Marcus Aurelius was Emperor. Epictetus was a slave. Two different fates, but the same reality. Most of life, most situations are out of our control. All we can do is respond to them well. All we can do is endure them.✉️ 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 Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We live in unprecedented times, we like to think. Our technology. Our conflicts. The state of the world. It’s all very new, it’s all very different.But is it though?Check out the Read To Lead Challenge 2022 and the Memento Mori Medallion.✉️  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.

In the first of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with one of the great non-fiction writers and historians of our time, Adam Hochschild, about how history can inform the push for change in the present, the civil rights trailblazers he examined in his book Bury the Chains (one of Ryan’s favorites), the links between the Stoic virtues and the United States’ anti-slavery movement, and more. Part two will be published on Saturday.Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian, and lecturer. He has written 11 books, including the highly regarded and influential King Leopold’s Ghost. He has written for the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and The Nation. He has received many awards for his writing, including the Duff Cooper Prize and the Mark Lynton History Award for King Leopold’s Ghost, and the California Book Awards Gold Medal and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History for Bury the Chains. Adam graduated from Harvard in 1963, and he holds honorary degrees from Curry College and the University of St. Andrews.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius marvels at “nature’s inadvertence.” A baker, he writes, makes the dough, kneads it and then puts it in the oven. Then physics, then Nature takes over. “The way loaves of bread split open,” Marcus writes, “the ridges are just byproducts of the baking, and yet pleasing, somehow: they rouse our appetite without our knowing why.”Today is the last day you can order our premium leather-bound edition of Meditations to ensure holiday delivery!✉️  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.

“It is a vast kingdom to be able to cope without a kingdom,” Seneca wrote in his play, Thyestes. This was no mere word play. This was hard-won wisdom.No one can stop you from ruling over yourself. It’s the best and the biggest and the strongest kingdom there is.---Those who have never been tested should be pitied, Seneca said, because they don’t know what they’re capable of. To Marcus, philosophy was all about challenging yourself. It was about settling on words and reminders (epithets, he called them) to live up to, particularly in difficult situations. 🃏Get this deck and you’ll be able to test your mind and body and become a better you: https://store.dailystoic.com/products...✉️  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.

The Roman Empire at that time was enormous. Jobs were scarce. Unemployment was high. Rapid expansion and economic stagnation had led to a sort of economic recession–one not unlike the one that looms globally right now.In response, the upper and ruling classes came together and instituted the Cura Annonae—the “care of grain.” The government distributed free grain to the poor and the suffering, ensuring that everyone had enough to eat, doing their Stoic duty to care for the common good. It’s an inspiring legacy that continues to this day–in fact, it’s one we’ve tried to not just speak about here at Daily Stoic but act on.If you would like to donate to Feeding America, just head over to dailystoic.com/feedingIf you live outside the U.S., check out Action Against Hunger —the global humanitarian organization that fights against hunger across nearly 50 countries.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

For many people, happiness is associated with contentment: being around family, enjoying work, having enough. But what are the secrets to obtaining a contented life in a world of materialistic excess and personal pressures?One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE) shared his wisdom about this question in his writings. In How to Be Content, Stephen Harrison, a leading authority on the poet, provides fresh, contemporary translations of poems from across Horace's works that continue to offer important lessons about the good life, friendship, love, and death.In this episode Ryan presents an excerpt of that book which specifically focuses on the idea of passion, and how the drive to obtain more and more can come between us and the good life.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

Ryan talks to mother-daughter duo Drs. Edith Enger and Marianne Engle about their work in clinical psychology, the power of spreading kindness in a world that often seems very cruel, letting go of the past through forgiveness, and more.A native of Hungary, Dr. Edith Eva Eger was just a teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz. Her parents were sent to the gas chambers, but Edith’s bravery kept her and her sister alive. Toward the end of the war Edith and other prisoners had been moved to Austria. On May 4, 1945 a young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a number of dead bodies. He quickly summoned medical help and brought her back from the brink of death. Dr. Eger is a practicing psychologist and a specialist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. She is the author of the bestselling memoir The Choice: Embrace the Possible and The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life. Edith’s daughter, Dr. Marianne Engle, is a clinical psychologist, sports psychologist, and author of a sports psychology program for youth athletes and coaches. Her clients have included professional athletes and teams from the NBA, PGA, and the America’s Cup sailing race in addition to elite athletes in ice skating, baseball, tennis, soccer, water polo, squash, dressage, volleyball, etc. She is currently on the faculty of the NYU Langone Medical School. She has held faculty appointments at Harvard, MIT, and UCSD in addition to being a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Sport and Society. She is a board member of the NYU Sport and Society program. Marianne also has a long history as a food writer and cook.✉️  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.

Yesterday we took a minute to think of all that we have to be grateful for, all the blessings life has bestowed on us–even if those things didn’t always appear to be blessings at the time. Well, today, on so called ‘Black Friday’ in America, instead of rushing out to get a deal on a flat-screen television, we should think about what to do with all that gratitude.It is our duty to help others. To serve others. To help people from going hungry. To alleviate someone’s worry and fear. To put food on their table.To contribute to Team Feed Corporate to help end hunger in America, visit dailystoic.com/feeding.If you live outside the U.S., check out Action Against Hunger, and click here to donate. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

Today in America is Thanksgiving. It’s the day when we’re supposed to actively practice gratitude, and be thankful for all that we have. Yet this can be hard to do…when the specter of a World War looms, the lingering of a terrible pandemic, the reality of a recession, divided politics and so many other obstacles sit before us.But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible.📕 We created a premium leather-bound edition of Meditations - To learn more and to pick up your own copy of this beautiful new edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

Ryan talks to Professor Jennifer Baker about her approach to teaching Stoicism, ethics, and political theory at the College of Charleston, what the Stoics might have said about driving a Mercedes instead of a Hyundai (or a Tesla), the challenges of teaching to today’s student population, and more.Jennifer Baker holds a Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Arizona and B.A. in Philosophy from Brown. She brings her academic training and passion for understanding ancient wisdom to the courses that she teaches on ethical and political theory, environmental ethics and philosophy, business ethics, bioethics, and American philosophy. Her research is on virtue ethics, and she looks to ancient ethical theories as positive examples of how ethics ought to be done today. She explores philosophical ideas in her blog on Psychology Today: For the Love of Wisdom.✉️  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.

At the beginning of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius laments the kind of people he’s going to meet each day—the bitter, the stupid, the jealous, the petty. Throughout the book he mentions other undesirables—the shameless, the evil, the greedy, the ignorant, the manipulative. Today, we could add still others— racists, polluters, rage profiteers, trolls and on and on.These people are frustrating. They make the world less safe, less productive, less collaborative. They poison the common good. They destroy any semblance of common understanding or commonality, period.But instead of getting angry at them, try pity first.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

This is what we tell ourselves: Someday I will write my book. Someday I will travel abroad. Someday I will learn how to play guitar.But someday soon, you will no longer be able to say, “someday…”---“A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.” – SenecaThe Stoics believed in living a virtuous life, one with the potential to bring us personal happiness and fulfillment. And that’s one of the reasons a person may choose to live after their fashion. After all, what good is philosophy if it doesn’t ultimately bring us happiness?But in Stoic philosophy, it’s the pursuit of virtue and good character that allows us to get there. For the Stoic, the pursuit of virtue is the pursuit of happiness. If we can live virtuously, a good life will follow.---If you want your own physical reminder of Memento Mori to create priority, humility, and appreciation for life, you can pick up one of our Memento Mori medallions to carry in your pocket everywhere you go. It is a part of our 2022 Daily Stoic Gift Guide, which is packed with 13 great gifts for the Stoic in your life.✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🎓 FREE GUIDE to Stoic philosophy: https://dailystoic.com/freeguideCheck 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.

It’s one of the most haunting paintings you’ll ever see. More than 11 feet wide and 8 feet tall, painted in rich but dark oils, Eugene Delacroix (a student of the Stoics) captures Marcus Aurelius at the end of his life. A plague has devastated Rome. His troubled son stands in the wings, unlikely to rule well. Marcus has had a hard life, filled with adversity, not meeting, as one historian noted, “with the good fortune he deserved.”Yet he strived to do right and to be good. He escaped “imperialization” in his words, avoided being “Caesarified” and dyed purple by the power of his position. He kept the faith, kept the empire going, doing his best. And now, weak and frail, the end was here. He knew, as he would say to his bodyguard, that the sun was setting.To learn more about the life of Marcus Aurelius, pick up this in-depth biography of the man in Lives of the Stoics, which is included in the new leather bound edition of the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

You’d think that the more powerful you are, the more freedom you’d have. The more money and success you have, the more you can do. You’d think that being a millionaire or being a celebrity or being the CEO would finally unshackle you from all the obnoxious and annoying constraints of being a ‘regular’ person…How wrong this is. How wrong this has always been.It was Eisenhower who said that freedom is really better described as the, “opportunity for self-discipline.” And you, you are lucky enough to live in a time of plenty that would have been unfathomable to history’s all-powerful kings. A time when nearly everything a person might want to do, they can, because there is no master standing over you. You are not an all-powerful sovereign, surely, but you have also never been more free.So now what? What will you do with this opportunity? What will you do with your freedom? Who will you make yourself become?✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📕 Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week—among them is a signed and numbered page from the original manuscript of the book. You can learn more about those and how to receive them over at https://dailystoic.com/preorder.🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/Instagram: ​https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/dailystoicFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan talks to personal finance advisor, entrepreneur, author, and host of the I Will Teach You To Be Rich podcast, Ramit Sethi about helping couples grow stronger through finances, the importance of a personal definition of “being rich,” healthy spending habits, and more.Ramit Sethi is the NY Times best-selling author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, founder of GrowthLab.com, and owner and co-founder of PBworks. He grew up in Fair Oaks, California and graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Science, Technology & Society with a minor in Psychology, as well as an MA in Sociology (Social Psychology and Interpersonal Processes), also from Stanford. Using his books, podcast, websites, and speaking engagements, Ramit strives to help couples and individuals learn how to live their personal version of a Rich Life.✉️ 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.

Years before he became president, Harry Truman owned a haberdashery that doubled as a local hang-out. A kid named Albert Ridge would often head there after his shift at the neighborhood grocery store. For the rest of his life, Ridge would tell the story of the time Truman gave him a list of ten books to read. It included books like Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Commentaries, and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck 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.

George Washington’s favorite saying was “many mickles make a muckle.” It was an old Scottish proverb that illustrates a truth we all know: things add up. Even little ones. Even at the pace of one per day.Our perennial Page-A-Day Calendar is designed to help you grow one day at a time. It’s one page with one Stoic quote for every day—perfect for your desk, your nightstand, your kitchen counter, or your bathroom mirror, just in time for the New Year.Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailGet 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 Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan talks to clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and author Dr. Sue Johnson about how Stoicism and Emotionally Focused Therapy complement and enrich each other, what psychology can teach us about the nature of human relationships, her best-selling book (and a game-changer for Ryan) Hold Me Tight, and more.With a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Hull and an Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Sue Johnson is a British clinical psychologist, therapist, and author most known for her work on bonding, attachment and adult romantic relationships. She co-developed Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy along with her colleague Les Greenberg as a psychotherapeutic approach for couples based attachment therapy. Her work has garnered numerous accolades, including being named Family Psychologist of the Year by the American Psychological Association’s Society for Couple and Family Psychology in 2016.✉️  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.

In several of Seneca’s letters he speaks about the power of bloodletting as a medical practice. In one, he actually remarks—with some superiority—how earlier generations had not yet discovered bloodletting and suffered for it.Marcus Aurelius hints at some other medical practices. He speaks of the treatment for ophthalmia—inflammation of the eye—and how doctors treated it with a bit of egg yolk. We also know that his doctor Galen gave Marcus opium for various pains and illnesses in old age.Needless to say, none of these treatments are accepted or prescribed anymore. It’s interesting that the Stoics, who were so good at extrapolating out from the past, didn’t take a lesson from this—that so much of what we are certain about today will be disproven in the future. The point is (and it’s a point well made in Chuck Klosterman’s book But What If We’re Wrong?) that we should always be questioning the status quo—and majority opinion.Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailGet 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 Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.