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Saturday, April 1, 2023
Your Saturday Stoic Review — Week of March 27 - April 2
Before we get into this week's Review, we had a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT earlier this week: Ryan Holiday's newest book, The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids is available for preorder! What does it mean to be a great parent? And how do you become one? The Daily Dad provides 366 accessible meditations on parenting in a manageable slice for each day of the year.
Because we'd like to encourage you to preorder The Daily Dad before its May 2 release, we've put together some exciting bonuses, including a numbered copy of the book signed by Ryan Holiday, enrollment in our Daily Stoic parenting course, and a free subscription to our Parenting Mastermind community. Head over to dailydadbook.com to secure your copy!
PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:
Your standards are for you. This philosophy is about your self-improvement. It's about being strict with yourself and forgiving of other people. That's not only the kind way to be, it's the only effective way to be. It's the only defense to being constantly upset and let down.
In one of the most-watched videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube Channel, Ryan Holiday details what made Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher king, so great. Ryan and other philosophers and experts who have appeared on the Daily Stoic Podcast share many stories and insights about Marcus, such as:
"Marcus Aurelius is not setting impossible standards…He is struggling to meet the standards that he has set for himself. Let's say he's talking about temper. If we realize he is writing to himself with no view towards publication, he's not lecturing someone else. He is admonishing himself after having lost his temper."
"I did grow up around grizzly bears. In grizzly country, you need to pay attention to what you're doing. There needs to be a heightened awareness because they are a much more aggressive and territorial animal than anything else out there, aside from maybe a moose. When you're out there hiking around, you have to pay attention to your surroundings, and it does amplify the whole experience. It makes the colors brighter and the smells stronger. It makes everything more intense, and I love that feeling. It's something you can't get unless those predators are there. That's why I feel so indebted to them and a strong need to conserve them."
"Hadrian looked back with nostalgia and respect to the heyday of the Roman Republic, long before the catastrophic first century B.C., when it broke down in a welter of bloodshed and the 'free state' gave way to the rule of emperors…[One] of Hadrian's heroes was Marcus Porcius Cato…As Hadrian matured from boy to man, he understood that Rome's future good fortune required a commitment to the mos maiorum, to the way generations of forefathers had done things."
My advice (for what it's worth) for success and happiness: Compete with yourself and root for everybody else.
In his letters to Lucilius, Seneca was explicit in his writing aspirations. He wanted to be one of the greats. But unlike some writers, he didn't view other writers as competition. If he read great work, he didn't see it as a threat. In fact, in his forty-sixth letter, Seneca says he received his copy of the book Lucilius wrote. He opened it with the intention of just quickly skimming it. "The sunlight called to me, hunger warned, and clouds were lowering," he explains, "but I absorbed the book from beginning to end. I was not merely pleased; I rejoiced. So full of wit and spirit it was!"
He was happy for his friend. He was rooting for him. And we can imagine, inspired to better himself and to get better at his own craft as well.
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