Your Saturday Stoic Review — Week of April 4 - 10

​ ​ PASSAGE OF THE WEEK: 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 or narrowly—even for a Stoic. — Who To Be Friends With? (Listen) YOUTUBE TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK: ​ In one of the most watched videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube Channel this week, Ryan shared the best pieces of life-changing advice he's ever gotten. One of those came from Dov Charney, the founder of American Apparel who Ryan worked under for several years. As Ryan prefaces, "it's perfectly possible to learn good lessons from bad people, to take value from flawed people…[Dov] was a a genius in many ways and a fundamentally positive force in fashion in a lot of ways until those demons overwhelmed and destroyed all that good." But early on at American Apparel, Dov described some criticism he was receiving as a tax you have to pay in life. As Ryan elaborates, "Seneca says, 'I pay the taxes of life gladly.' He doesn't just mean from the government. It's like look, are annoying people a tax on being outside of your house? Of course. Are delays a tax on travel? Yes. Are sudden rainstorms attacks on a tropical paradise? Yes. There are taxes on everything. The tax of having this youtube channel is negative comments or haters. There's a tax on everything…[It's] the fundamental reality of life: 'nothing's certain but death and taxes.' There are going to be taxes in life in whatever you do—if you become a famous person, they'll make up rumors about you. If you do charitable work, people will question your intentions or your motivations. If you have kids, you will lose sleep. There's a tax on everything in life…You have to pay these things. There's no use crying about it. There's no use whining about it…You have to pay the taxes of life gladly, as Seneca said, and then move on." PODCAST TAKEAWAY OF THE WEEK: ​ On the Daily Stoic podcast this week, Ryan interviewed actress and author Karen Duffy about her new book Wise Up: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother Who's Been Through It, how she discovered Stoicism, how she has relied on Stoicism in her ongoing battle with a chronic illness, and much more. At one point in their conversation, Ryan referenced the incredible story of Jim Valvano's father (which we've written about here, here, and here over at Daily Dad*) then asked Karen how she balances the parental tension between supporting her son and worrying about his safety: "My son is a hockey goalie. He's been playing since he was four. One of the things I realized is that, as a Mom, if I worried about him out there on the ice where he's in the net and pucks are coming at him at 100 miles an hour—if I worried about his safety, I would dissolve the joy that he gets from that. And so I really had to rely on a lot of Stoic training. As Nassim Taleb says, I had to domesticate my emotion of fear. I couldn't eradicate it. I had to domesticate it. Because I did not want to become the person that robbed him of the joy of what he loves the most." WHAT RYAN HOLIDAY IS READING: "The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love. There's an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income. I think the same thing is true of our idea incomes. You're only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with…Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by." — Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon (Signed copies available here) YOUR STOIC WEEKEND REMINDER: You don't always need to have an opinion. It's possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. You don't have to turn this into something, he reminds himself. You don't have to let this upset you. If someone insulted Cato, he pretended not to hear it. When someone attacked Marcus Aurelius's character, he tried to think about the character of the person saying it. When someone said something offensive to Epictetus, he told himself that if he got upset, he was as much to blame as they were. He also joked that if they really knew him, they'd be even more critical. You don't have to be provoked. You don't have to have an opinion. You don't have to turn things into bigger things. (For more on this idea, watch this video!) THIS WEEK'S BEST SOCIAL MEDIA POST: ​ EMAIL OF THE WEEK: ​This Was a Reminder (Listen) *P.S. If you haven't already, we invite you to check out DailyDad.com, our free daily email inspired by ancient wisdom. And if you are a parent wanting to strengthen your connection with your family, check out The Stoic Parent: 10 Commandments For Becoming A Better Parent. It's a course that uses the wisdom of the Stoics to teach you how to be an amazing parent and spouse.* ​ ​ ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 906 Main Street #274, Bastrop, Texas 78602